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Adolescents’ Interpersonal Negotiation Strategies: Does Competence Vary by Context?
Author(s) -
Baker Elizabeth,
ExnerCortens Deinera
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of research on adolescence
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.342
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 1532-7795
pISSN - 1050-8392
DOI - 10.1111/jora.12578
Subject(s) - negotiation , psychology , interpersonal communication , romance , social psychology , context (archaeology) , developmental psychology , interpersonal relationship , competence (human resources) , social skills , political science , paleontology , biology , psychoanalysis , law
Negotiating conflict in healthy ways is key to adolescents’ social functioning. This paper examines interpersonal negotiation strategies (INS) (a developmental framework for navigating conflict) across three different contexts (friend, romantic, and parent) in a sample of 212 Canadian mid‐adolescents. Adolescents were asked how they would deal with a hypothetical conflict in each context. Adolescents were most advanced at negotiating conflict in the friend context, followed by parent and romantic contexts; negotiation skills were worst in the romantic context. Girls demonstrated a higher level of INS than boys, but only with friends. These results indicate the need for universal healthy relationship programs that support the development of conflict negotiation skills, especially within the new interpersonal context of romantic relationships.