Parent-Adolescent Conflict across Adolescence: Trajectories of Informant Discrepancies and Associations with Personality Types

Abstract

Parent-adolescent conflict can be intense, yet parents and adolescents do not always agree on the intensity of conflict. Conflict intensity tends to change during adolescence and is thought to be an indicator of how the parent-adolescent relationship transforms. However, parents and adolescents might differently perceive change in conflict intensity, resulting in changing discrepancies in conflict intensity throughout adolescence. Also, personality characteristics of parents and adolescents might affect the extent to which there are discrepancies in perceptions of conflict intensity. This multi-informant longitudinal study investigated a) the trajectories of parent-adolescent conflict intensity, b) the trajectories of informant discrepancies, and c) the prediction of these trajectories by parental and adolescent personality. Dutch adolescents (N = 497, 43.1% female, M age = 13.03 at T1), their mothers, and their fathers reported on parent-adolescent conflict intensity and personality for six years. Latent Growth Curve Modeling and Latent Congruence Modeling revealed curvilinear changes in conflict intensity, as well as in discrepancies thereof. Two cycles of discrepancies emerged. First, in early-to-middle-adolescence discrepancies in perceptions of parents and adolescents increased, reflecting that adolescents' perceived conflict intensity increased. Second, in middle-to-late-adolescence, father-adolescent discrepancies increased further, reflecting that fathers' perceptions of conflict decreased. Resilient adolescents, mothers, and fathers reported lower levels of conflict intensity than Undercontrollers and Overcontrollers, but personality was not associated with the rate of change in conflict intensity. Finally, undercontrolling fathers and overcontrolling adolescents showed higher father-adolescent discrepancies. This study showed that parents and adolescents differentially perceive conflict intensity and that in the adolescent-father relationship, the extent of the differences depends on adolescent and father personality.

Full text

Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2020) 49:119–135
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-019-01054-7
EMPIRICAL RESEARCH
Parent–Adolescent Conflict across Adolescence: Trajectories of
Informant Discrepancies and Associations with Personality Types
Stefanos Mastrotheodoros 1●Jolien Van der Graaff1●Maja Deković2●Wim H. J. Meeus1●Susan Branje1
Received: 27 March 2019 / Accepted: 1 June 2019 / Published online: 26 June 2019
© The Author(s) 2019
Abstract
Parent–adolescent conflict can be intense, yet parents and adolescents do not always agree on the intensity of conflict.
Conflict intensity tends to change during adolescence and is thought to be an indicator of how the parent–adolescent
relationship transforms. However, parents and adolescents might differently perceive change in conflict intensity, resulting in
changing discrepancies in conflict intensity throughout adolescence. Also, personality characteristics of parents and
adolescents might affect the extent to which there are discrepancies in perceptions of conflict intensity. This multi-informant
longitudinal study investigated a) the trajectories of parent–adolescent conflict intensity, b) the trajectories of informant
discrepancies, and c) the prediction of these trajectories by parental and adolescent personality. Dutch adolescents (N=497,
43.1% female, Mage =13.03 at T1), their mothers, and their fathers reported on parent–adolescent conflict intensity and
personality for six years. Latent Growth Curve Modeling and Latent Congruence Modeling revealed curvilinear changes in
conflict intensity, as well as in discrepancies thereof. Two cycles of discrepancies emerged. First, in early-to-middle-
adolescence discrepancies in perceptions of parents and adolescents increased, reflecting that adolescents’perceived conflict
intensity increased. Second, in middle-to-late-adolescence, father–adolescent discrepancies increased further, reflecting that
fathers’perceptions of conflict decreased. Resilient adolescents, mothers, and fathers reported lower levels of conflict
intensity than Undercontrollers and Overcontrollers, but personality was not associated with the rate of change in conflict
intensity. Finally, undercontrolling fathers and overcontrolling adolescents showed higher father–adolescent discrepancies.
This study showed that parents and adolescents differentially perceive conflict intensity and that in the adolescent–father
relationship, the extent of the differences depends on adolescent and father personality.
Keywords Parent–adolescent conflict ●Parent–adolescent discrepancies ●Personality types ●RUO typology ●Parenting
Introduction
Conflicts among parents and adolescents may be among the
most aggravating family experiences of adolescence, for
parents and adolescents alike. However, parent–adolescent
conflict can also forge change towards greater egalitarian-
ism in family relationships (Branje 2018), and it is, there-
fore, important to better understand how parent–adolescent
conflict develops across adolescence. Even though many
studies show a decrease in conflict frequency throughout
adolescence (Shanahan et al. 2007), conflict intensity tends
to increase from early to middle adolescence and to
decrease thereafter (De Goede et al. 2009). As most of what
is known thus far is based on adolescents’views of conflict
intensity, a more coherent picture of how conflict intensity
develops across adolescence can be achieved by taking the
views of mothers and fathers into account. Also, investi-
gating parent–adolescent discrepancies in conflict intensity
through a developmental lens may provide additional
insight into how parent–adolescent relationships change
during adolescence (Korelitz and Garber 2016).
Research has shown that there is heterogeneity in the
trajectories of conflict intensity and parent–adolescent
*Stefanos Mastrotheodoros
s.mastrotheodoros@uu.nl
1Department of Youth and Family, Faculty of Social and
Behavioral Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
2Department of Clinical Child and Family Studies, Faculty of
Social and Behavioral Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The
Netherlands
Supplementary information The online version of this article (https://
doi.org/10.1007/s10964-019-01054-7) contains supplementary
material, which is available to authorized users.
1234567890();,:
1234567890();,:
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discrepancies. Some parent–adolescent dyads have high
conflict intensity and increase in conflict intensity over time,
whereas other parent–adolescent dyads have lower and
stable levels of conflict intensity across adolescence
(Hadiwijaya et al. 2017). Because people’s personality
affects the quality of their interpersonal relationships, as
well as their perception and interpretation of these rela-
tionships, it is expected that personality is related to
parent–adolescent conflict intensity (Mund et al. 2018), and
parent–adolescent discrepancies in perceptions of conflict
intensity. The aim of this multi-informant longitudinal study
was threefold. The first aim was to investigate the trajec-
tories of conflict intensity across adolescence from the
perspective of mothers, fathers, and adolescents. The sec-
ond aim was to investigate the trajectories of
parent–adolescent discrepancies in perceptions of conflict
intensity. The third aim was to test whether maternal,
paternal, and adolescent personality predicted these devel-
opmental trajectories.
Parent–Adolescent Conflict
During adolescence, young people are thought to develop
more autonomy than during childhood (e.g., Branje et al.
2012). For adolescents to become competent in adult roles,
parents need to gradually release part of their authority and
allow the parent–adolescent relationship to transform
towards a more egalitarian one (Branje et al. 2012). Ado-
lescents generally expect independent decision making
earlier than parents are willing to grant it (Dekovićet al.
1997), and this may create a fertile ground for
parent–adolescent conflicts (Collins and Laursen 1992).
Furthermore, adolescence usually coincides with parents’
midlife, an often challenging life stage, characterized by a
need to re-evaluate their life course, adjust to new work
conditions, and redefine life satisfaction (van Aken et al.
2006). Thus, a “coincidental”crisis emerges (Steinberg and
Silk 2002), with increased conflict potential. In addition, the
emotional repercussions of puberty (Cservenka et al. 2015),
coupled with the still-developing emotional self-regulation
during adolescence (Bowers et al. 2011) may increase the
intensity of parent–adolescent conflicts (Laursen et al.
1998). Given that parent–adolescent conflict has significant
consequences for adolescent adaptation (Branje et al. 2009),
it is vital to study its developmental course throughout
adolescence.
Empirical findings on the trajectory of parent–adolescent
conflict intensity are inconsistent. Conflict intensity has
been found to decrease from age 11 to age 12 and to remain
stable until age 14 (Galambos and Almeida 1992). How-
ever, other longitudinal studies found that, on average,
adolescent-reported conflict intensity increased between age
11 and age 15 (De Goede et al. 2009; McGue et al. 2005),
and decreased between ages 16 to 19 (De Goede et al.
2009). Also, both studies found gender differences, with
girls increasing in parent–adolescent conflict intensity more
than boys (De Goede et al. 2009; McGue et al. 2005). A
study on the development of adolescent-reported conflict
intensity between ages 14 and 17 also revealed hetero-
geneity in development, with stable low negativity for most
adolescents, and increasing negativity for a minority of
adolescents (Seiffge-Krenke et al. 2010). To conclude,
some empirical studies on the trajectories of conflict
intensity showed an increase, and some showed stability.
This inconsistency might be due to the different age periods
examined in the various studies.
Furthermore, extant studies usually relied on a single
informant (either the adolescent or a parent), leaving a
knowledge gap on how parent–adolescent conflict intensity
develops according to adolescents, mothers, and fathers.
Parents and adolescents tend to perceive interpersonal
conflict (Van Lissa et al. 2015), and aspects of their rela-
tionship (Mastrotheodoros et al. 2018), differently.
Research on a related concept, conflict engagement, docu-
mented a temporary increase from early to middle adoles-
cence only according to adolescents’views, but not
according to mothers’and fathers’views (Van Doorn et al.
2011). These reporter differences might result from the
different position in the hierarchical relationship, in which
adolescents want to acquire more autonomy, and parents are
motivated to preserve the status quo.
Parent–Adolescent Discrepancies
A gold standard in the measurement of psychosocial con-
structs in developmental research is the use of multiple
informants. Using multiple informants not only provides a
more well-balanced representation of conflict intensity tra-
jectories but also allows investigating possible dis-
crepancies in perceptions of conflict (De Los Reyes and
Kazdin 2005). Such discrepancies are not measurement
error (De Los Reyes et al. 2010), and instead may reflect
key dynamics in the parent–adolescent relationship that are
meaningfully associated with adolescent and parent adap-
tation (De Los Reyes et al. 2019). For example, differences
among parental and adolescent views of conflict were
positively associated with adolescent depressive symptoms
and risky behaviors (Skinner and McHale 2016). Further-
more, adolescents in families with high parent–adolescent
discrepancies in perceptions of family functioning were at
higher risk for sexually dangerous behaviors and alcohol
use (Córdova et al. 2016). In contrast, maternal psycholo-
gical symptoms were higher when both mothers and ado-
lescents agreed on low family satisfaction, compared to
when only the mother reported low family satisfaction, but
the adolescent reported high family satisfaction
120 Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2020) 49:119–135
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(Ohannessian et al. 2016). These findings show that taking
more than one perspective into account might be more
insightful compared to using only one informant.
Parent-child discrepancies might be particularly relevant to
investigate during adolescence. The stage-environment fit
hypothesis (Eccles et al. 1993) posits that the opportunities
offered by the social context adolescents live in (e.g., the
family) might not fit adolescents’developmental needs.
Adolescents show increasing decision-making abilities and
need for autonomy, and parents may not always optimally
recognize and respond to these changing needs. Such a
“needs-opportunities”mismatch might be reflected in
parent–adolescent discrepancies in the perception of the
quality of their relationship. Besides, as adolescents grow
older, they may refrain from disclosing information to their
parents, as a means to establish autonomy (Keijsers et al.
2009). This decreased disclosure results in less communica-
tion, which has been associated with increased
parent–adolescent discrepancies (Ehrlich et al. 2016). How-
ever, towards late adolescence, the parent–adolescent rela-
tionship becomes more egalitarian (Branje 2018), and
therefore, increasing agreement (i.e., less discrepancy) in
perceptions may be expected. This curvilinear trend in dis-
crepancies across adolescence is in line with the Operations
Triad Model (De Los Reyes and Ohannessian 2016), which
suggests that a curvilinear pattern, where discrepancies initi-
ally increase from early to middle adolescence and decrease
thereafter, might indicate normative development. However,
whether such a pattern exists, and whether this is the nor-
mative pattern of discrepancy development during adoles-
cence can only be clarified by adopting a developmental
perspective on parent–adolescent discrepancies (De Los
Reyes et al. 2019). Hence, investigating parent–adolescent
discrepancies developmentally has been recently ranked as
the main priority in parent–adolescent discrepancy research
(De Los Reyes et al. 2019).
Despite the emerging literature on parent–adolescent
discrepancies (De Los Reyes and Ohannessian 2016), few
studies have investigated how discrepancies develop during
adolescence. Extant studies showed that discrepancies could
develop in different directions. A meta-analysis on cross-
sectional studies on the degree and direction of parent-child
discrepancies in parenting constructs revealed moderation
by age, such that in samples with older children there was
less parent-child discrepancy than in samples with younger
children (Korelitz and Garber 2016). A recent one-year
longitudinal study found that mother–adolescent dis-
crepancies in perceptions of open communication increased
between ages 16 and 17, but discrepancies in perceptions of
communication problems did not (De Los Reyes et al.
2016). Additionally, another study found a curvilinear pat-
tern of parent–adolescent differences in perceptions of
familism from age 12 to age 22, where an initial increase
was followed by a decrease (Padilla et al. 2016). Finally, a
study that investigated the heterogeneity in the trajectories
of parent–adolescent discrepancies in family functioning
found that for most families the discrepancies were low and
stable across adolescence, yet a minority of families was
characterized by either high stable or high increasing dis-
crepancies (Córdova et al. 2016). However, the develop-
mental trajectories of mother–adolescent, and
father–adolescent discrepancies in conflict intensity across
adolescence remain largely unknown.
Personality Types and Parent–Adolescent Conflict
Interpersonal relationships vary in quantity and quality, and
this is partly because of the personalities of the dyad
members (e.g., Mund and Neyer 2014). Because personality
and interpersonal relationships are linked (e.g., Mund and
Neyer 2014), heterogeneity in parent–adolescent conflict
intensity (De Goede et al. 2009), as well as in its devel-
opment (Seiffge-Krenke et al. 2010), may stem from par-
ental or adolescent personality. In the current study, a
typological approach to personality was applied (Asendorpf
and van Aken 1999), which recognizes that people employ
a constellation of characteristics instead of single, segre-
gated characteristics in isolation (Yu et al. 2014). One of the
most commonly applied person-centered approaches to
personality is Block and Block’s RUO (Resilients, Under-
controllers, Overcontrollers) typology (Block and Block
1980). Based on this typology three personality types have
been proposed: Resilient, characterized by relatively high
scores on all Big Five factors; Undercontrollers, mainly
characterized by low Agreeableness and Conscientiousness;
and Overcontrollers, mainly characterized by low Emo-
tional Stability, low Extraversion, and average or high
scores on the other three dimensions (Klimstra et al. 2009a).
Adolescents and adults with an undercontrolling or
overcontrolling personality type may employ more con-
flictual behaviors in their relationships. Undercontrollers
and Overcontrollers are characterized by personality char-
acteristics that are typically associated with more conflictual
relationships. That is, they tend to have characteristics that
relate to higher anger and aggression, like lower Agree-
ableness (De Fruyt et al. 2017; Jensen-Campbell and Gra-
ziano 2001), and lower Conscientiousness (Jensen-
Campbell and Malcolm 2007) for Undercontrollers, and
lower Emotional Stability (Jones et al. 2011) for Over-
controllers. Undercontrolling children (Denissen et al.
2007) and adults (Bohane et al. 2017) indeed show higher
levels of aggression and engagement in conflicts compared
to Resilients. Furthermore, personality, by definition,
encompasses differences in how people perceive their
environment (Mund and Neyer 2014). Therefore, under-
controlling or overcontrolling adolescents and adults may
Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2020) 49:119–135 121
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also view their interpersonal relationships differently com-
pared to how their partners perceive them. This might give
rise to higher discrepancies. For example, Undercontrollers,
who have low Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, and
Overcontrollers, who have low Emotional Stability, may be
more difficult to relate and openly communicate with,
which may lead to higher divergence in relational percep-
tions. Indeed, mothers with higher trait negative affectivity
and lower trait positive affectivity show higher dis-
crepancies with their sons, compared to mothers with a
more adaptive profile (Shishido and Latzman 2017). Resi-
lients might not only have more adaptive and less con-
flictual relationships, but might also more easily and
straightforward communicate about their relationship per-
ceptions and have a higher mutual understanding. This
might result in lower discrepancies in perceptions. There-
fore, adolescents and parents with a Resilient personality
type are expected to have lower conflict intensity and lower
discrepancies than Overcontrollers and Undercontrollers.
The Present Study
Taken together, extant research has shown that adolescents’
views of parent–adolescent conflict intensity display a
curvilinear trend across adolescence. However, less is
known about the development of conflict intensity across
adolescence according to mothers and fathers. More
importantly, trajectories of parent–adolescent discrepancies
remain understudied, and so do possible determinants of
such trajectories. The current multi-informant and long-
itudinal study aimed to answer the following questions:
How does parent–adolescent conflict intensity develop
across adolescence, according to the views of mothers,
fathers, and adolescents? (RQ1) Given previous studies that
found a curvilinear trend of conflict intensity (e.g., De
Goede et al. 2009), it was expected that conflict intensity
would increase from early to middle adolescence, and
decrease thereafter (Hypothesis 1). How do
parent–adolescent discrepancies in conflict intensity
develop across adolescence? (RQ2) Based on theoretical
perspectives (De Los Reyes and Ohannessian 2016; Eccles
et al. 1993), it was expected that an initial increase would be
followed by a decrease in discrepancies in perceptions of
conflict intensity (Hypothesis 2). Do personality types
predict the trajectories of conflict intensity and the trajec-
tories of discrepancies in perceptions of conflict intensity
across adolescence? (RQ3) Given the role personality types
play in interpersonal interaction (Denissen et al. 2007) and
informant discrepancies (e.g., Shishido and Latzman 2017),
it was expected that a Resilient personality type would be
associated with lower conflict intensity, and smaller
parent–adolescent discrepancies (Hypothesis 3).
Method
Participants
The sample consisted of 497 adolescents (43.1% girls,
Mage =13.03, SD =0.46, at T1; Mage =18.03, SD =0.46,
at T6), their mothers (N =497, Mage =40.41, SD =4.45, at
T1), and their fathers (N=456, Mage =46.74, SD =5.11, at
T1) who took part in six annual assessments of an ongoing
longitudinal study (Research on Adolescent Development
And Relationships, see https://www.uu.nl/en/research/radar)
in The Netherlands, from 2006 to 2011. Adolescents were
recruited from randomly selected elementary schools from
the province of Utrecht as well as from three other big cities
in The Netherlands. From a list of 850 regular schools in the
western and central regions of the Netherlands, 429 were
randomly selected and approached. Of those, 296 (69%)
were willing to participate, and 230 of those were approa-
ched. Schools were used for initial screening (teacher
reports for all 12-year-old students), as well as a means to
approach families. Of the total of students screened (n=
4615), 1544 were randomly selected. Because the aim of the
study was to include two-parent families with at least one
more child older than 10 years old, 1081 families were
approached. Of those, 470 refused to take part and 114 did
not sign informed consent, resulting in the final sample of
497 families.
Data were collected via annual home visits during which
participants filled-in self-report questionnaires, and proce-
dures were the same for all six waves. During the first
measurement wave, adolescents were in 7th Grade. Most
adolescents were native Dutch (94.8%) and lived with both
parents (85.2%). Regarding parental occupation, for 87.7%
of adolescents at least one of the parents’jobs was classified
as medium level (e.g., police officer, physician’s assistant)
or high level (e.g., doctor, scientist, high school teacher),
whereas 12.3% of adolescents came from families in which
parents were either unemployed, or held an elementary job
(e.g., construction worker, janitor, truck driver; Statistics
Netherlands 1993). Furthermore, most parents had com-
pleted either secondary (55.9% of mothers; 48.1% of
fathers) or higher education (40.2% of mothers; 49.6% of
fathers).
Measures
Parent–adolescent conflict intensity
To measure conflict intensity, 6 items from the Negative
Interactions scale, from the Network of Relationships
Inventory—short form (NRI) were used (De Goede et al.
2009; Furman and Buhrmester 1985). Participants answered
on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 (Little or Not at all)
122 Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2020) 49:119–135
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to 5 (More is not possible) how much anger, irritation, and
negative behaviors they experienced in their relationship.
The scale was completed by (a) adolescents regarding the
relationship with their mother (Adolescent-Mother report,
AM); (b) adolescents regarding the relationship with their
fathers (Adolescent-Father report, AF); (c) mothers regard-
ing the relationship with the adolescents (mother–adolescent
report, MA); and (d) fathers regarding the relationship with
the adolescents (father–adolescent report, FA). Cronbach’s
α’s ranged across waves between α’s=0.90–0.95 (adoles-
cent-mother report); α’s=0.90–0.94 (adolescent-father
report); α’s=0.90–0.92 (mother–adolescent report); α’s=
0.90–0.92 (father–adolescent report). Example items are:
“How much do you and your mother/father/child get upset
with or mad at each other?”and “How much do you and
your mother/father/child get on each other’s nerves?”
Personality
To measure maternal, paternal, and adolescent personality,
the shortened Dutch version of Goldberg’s Big Five
Questionnaire was used (Goldberg 1992; Vermulst and
Gerris 2005). This questionnaire applies a 7-point Likert
scale with a response format ranging from 1 (Completely
untrue)to7(Completely true), to assess five personality
dimensions: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientious-
ness, Emotional Stability, and Openness to Experience. It
consists of 30 adjectives, six per personality trait, such as
“imaginative”(Openness to Experience), “organized”
(Conscientiousness), “talkative”(Extraversion), “sympa-
thetic”(Agreeableness), and “worried”(Emotional Stabi-
lity, reverse coded). Mothers, fathers, and adolescents
addressed these adjectives with reference to themselves.
Previous studies have shown that this instrument has ade-
quate reliability and validity when administered among
adolescents (Klimstra et al. 2009b). In the current study the
Cronbach’sα’s across waves and across the Big Five
dimensions ranged between α’s=0.72–0.89 (adolescent
reports), α’s=0.84–0.91 (mother reports), and α’s=
0.79–0.91 (father reports).
Attrition and Missing Values
The majority of adolescents (85.7%), mothers (84.5%), and
fathers (75.5%) were still involved in the study at Wave 6,
and the average participation rate across the six waves was
90.4, 90.2, and 81.7%, for adolescents, mothers, and fathers,
respectively. Little’s MCAR test (Little 1988) was significant
[χ2(8308) =9216, p=0.000], but the normed χ2/df (9216/
8308 =1.11) indicated that the assumption of missingness
being completely at random was not seriously violated.
Therefore, data from all 497 families could be included in the
analyses using Full Information Maximum Likelihood.
Procedure
The study was approved by the medical ethics committee of
Utrecht University (METC). Before the start of the study,
parents were required to provide informed consent, and
adolescents to provide assent. Adolescents and parents filled
out questionnaires during annual home visits. Trained
research assistants provided verbal instructions in addition
to written instructions that accompanied the questionnaires.
Confidentiality was guaranteed, and the data were processed
anonymously. Each wave families received 100 euros for
their participation.
Analytic Plan
The first analytic step consisted of testing measurement
invariance of the Negative Interactions scale across the four
reports, within each wave (Van de Schoot et al. 2012) using
MPlus 8.2 (Muthén and Muthén 1996–2018). To account
for dependency in the observations, Type=COMPLEX and
a unique family code as clustering variable were used. After
specifying a univariate model in which the six items loaded
on one latent factor, the function automatically estimated a
configural, a metric, and a scalar invariance model, corre-
sponding to equality of the factor structure, the item load-
ings, and the item intercepts and loadings, respectively. A
maximum likelihood estimator with robust standard errors
was chosen, given the right-skew of the scale. Also, for
each reporter, longitudinal measurement invariance of the
Negative Interactions scale across the six waves was tested,
using the meas Eq.syntax function of the semTools package
in R (Jorgensen et al. 2018).
To answer the first research question on the trajectories
of parent–adolescent conflict intensity across adolescence,
four univariate Latent Growth Curve Models (LGCM,
Wang and Wang 2012) were applied in lavaan (Rosseel
2012), separately for the AM, AF, MA, and FA reports. For
each model, it was first examined whether linear or quad-
ratic slope fit the data best, based on model fit indices (CFI,
TLI, RMSEA, SRMR, and BIC). To ease comparisons and
interpretation, in case the quadratic slope fit the model
better compared to the linear, piecewise LGCM was
applied. For that purpose, a series of LGCM was run, where
the “knot,”that is, the point the slope would be split into
two linear pieces, was tested in different time points. These
models were compared in terms of model fit (CFI, TLI,
RMSEA, and SRMR), and the model that fit the data best
was selected as the piecewise model of choice.
Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2020) 49:119–135 123
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To answer the second research question, regarding the
development of parent–adolescent discrepancies in conflict
intensity, the following steps were applied. First, Latent
Congruence Modeling (Cheung 2009; Ksinan and Vazsonyi
2016) was used to estimate two latent factors, based on two
reports (e.g., AM and MA reports). The latent mean level
factor captures the mean of the two reports, and each of the
two reports has a factor loading of 1 on this factor. The latent
congruence factor captures the latent difference of the two
reports by constraining the first reporter’s (here, the adoles-
cent’s) loadings to 0.5 and the other reporter’s(here,the
parent’s) to −0.5. The latent congruence factor was estimated
separately for each dyad (mother–adolescent;
father–adolescent) and each year of measurement (T1–T6).
For each of these models, the latent congruence factor scores
were saved. Second, LGCMs were applied on the saved
scores for mother–adolescent and father–adolescent dyads
separately. For the LGCMs, the same steps as those regarding
answering the first research question were followed.
To answer the third research question on the role of
personality types, the growth patterns of the Big Five were
first investigated separately for adolescents, and parents, to
determine the shape of the curve, as well as the existence of
significant variance around the mean estimates. Next, Latent
Class Growth Analysis (LCGA, Jung and Wickrama 2008;
Nagin 2005) was applied in Mplus 8.2 (Muthén and Muthén
1996–2018) on the resulting trajectories of the Big Five
traits, separately for adolescents and parents, as a means to
investigate different personality type trajectories of adoles-
cents and parents. Gender was controlled for, to account for
the gender differences in personality (Klimstra et al. 2009a).
The number of classes was decided based on both theore-
tical and empirical grounds. Theoretically, a three-class
solution was expected, resembling Block and Block’s
(1980) RUO typology. On the empirical level, a lower
sample-adjusted Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), a
higher entropy (classification accuracy), and a significant
Vuong-Lo-Mendel-Rubin Likelihood Ratio Test (VLMR-
LRT) were used as criteria for the number of classes. Third,
the resulting latent personality classes were used as pre-
dictors of the intercepts and slopes of the four univariate
LGCMs for conflict intensity (i.e., for the AM, AF, MA,
and FA reports of conflict intensity), and the two LGCMs
for the discrepancies in conflict intensity. Specifically,
dummy variables were created for each personality type.
The intercepts and the slopes of conflict intensity in the
mother–adolescent relationship as reported by mothers and
adolescents (in separate models) and discrepancies in
mother–adolescent conflict intensity were regressed on
adolescent and maternal personality types. Similarly, the
intercepts and the slopes of conflict intensity in the
father–adolescent relationship as reported by fathers and
adolescents (in separate models) and discrepancies in
father–adolescent conflict intensity were regressed on ado-
lescent and paternal personality types.
Results
Descriptive Statistics
Table 1provides the means, standard deviations, and
bivariate correlations of all conflict intensity scores across
waves.
Measurement Invariance of the Negative
Interactions scale
As seen in Table S1 (see Supplemental information), all
models supported scalar invariance across reporters, for all
waves, as well as across waves. Imposing restrictions for
equality of factor loadings, and subsequently for item
intercepts, did not lead to worse fit beyond the recom-
mended thresholds (ΔCFI ≤0.010, ΔTLI ≤0.010,
ΔRMSEA ≤0.015, Cheung and Rensvold 2002). Also, the
scalar models were in all cases those with the lowest BIC,
therefore achieving the best parsimony-to-fit balance among
the three models (configural, metric, scalar).
Development of Conflict Intensity across
Adolescence
For all four Latent Growth Curve Models, a non-linear
slope fit the data better compared to a linear slope
(Table S2, in Supplemental information). Therefore, a series
of piecewise LGCMs was applied, to detect the time point
where the knot fit best (Wang and Wang 2012). The time
where the knot fit the data best was Wave 3 (adolescent age
15 years) for adolescent-father reports, and Wave 4 (ado-
lescent age 16 years) for adolescent-mother reports and
mother- and father-reports of conflict intensity.
Table 2presents the intercepts and slopes for these four
LGCMs (see also Fig. 1). According to adolescents, conflict
intensity with their mothers and fathers increased from early
to middle adolescence (ages 13 to 16 for adolescents’
relationship with their mothers, and ages 13 to 15 for
adolescents’relationship with their fathers), and then
remained stable. According to mothers and fathers, conflict
with their adolescents remained stable from early to middle
adolescence (ages 13 to 16) and then decreased until age 18.
For most intercepts and slopes, there was significant var-
iance around the average estimates, which indicates that
124 Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2020) 49:119–135
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Table 1 Means, standard deviations, and correlations for the longitudinal scores on the Negative Interactions scale
Variable MSDSES Gender 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Adol.-Moth
1. neg1 1.66 0.59 0.14*** 0.07
2. neg2 1.71 0.67 0.12** 0.07 0.56**
3. neg3 1.75 0.67 0.06 0.01 0.50** 0.61**
4. neg4 1.79 0.69 0.04 0.03 0.43** 0.58** 0.63**
5. neg5 1.80 0.72 0.00 0.02 0.38** 0.50** 0.59** 0.69**
6. neg6 1.74 0.65 −0.01 0.04 0.35** 0.45** 0.54** 0.62** 0.64**
Adol.-Fath.
7. neg1 1.51 0.56 0.03 −0.02 0.34** 0.29** 0.13** 0.13** 0.16** 0.16**
8. neg2 1.60 0.64 0.06 0.04 0.31** 0.40** 0.24** 0.24** 0.22** 0.17** 0.67**
9. neg3 1.67 0.66 0.00 0.06 0.19** 0.27** 0.31** 0.18** 0.23** 0.19** 0.54** 0.61**
10. neg4 1.70 0.67 −0.04 0.04 0.17** 0.22** 0.20** 0.27** 0.22** 0.24** 0.50** 0.54** 0.69**
11. neg5 1.70 0.69 0.04 0.04 0.27** 0.32** 0.32** 0.39** 0.40** 0.30** 0.44** 0.51** 0.57** 0.63**
12. neg6 1.69 0.68 −0.01 0.04 0.20** 0.20** 0.16** 0.27** 0.30** 0.32** 0.35** 0.43** 0.48** 0.63** 0.68**
Mother
13. neg1 1.52 0.53 0.13*** 0.15*** 0.43** 0.44** 0.39** 0.38** 0.35** 0.31** 0.26** 0.24** 0.22** 0.18** 0.29** 0.15**
14. neg2 1.55 0.54 0.11* 0.12** 0.39** 0.53** 0.43** 0.33** 0.32** 0.33** 0.23** 0.31** 0.24** 0.19** 0.31** 0.11* 0.69**
15. neg3 1.52 0.50 0.06 0.11* 0.29** 0.43** 0.50** 0.36** 0.37** 0.33** 0.13** 0.22** 0.30** 0.18** 0.24** 0.07 0.58** 0.67**
16. neg4 1.55 0.56 0.04 0.04 0.28** 0.40** 0.39** 0.47** 0.38** 0.36** 0.16** 0.19** 0.21** 0.21** 0.30** 0.16** 0.56** 0.59** 0.71**
17. neg5 1.50 0.54 0.13** 0.08 0.27** 0.41** 0.39** 0.43** 0.49** 0.42** 0.20** 0.24** 0.25** 0.20** 0.35** 0.22** 0.56** 0.60** 0.66** 0.74**
18. neg6 1.48 0.54 0.12* 0.07 0.27** 0.43** 0.43** 0.44** 0.46** 0.54** 0.15** 0.17** 0.23** 0.18** 0.31** 0.22** 0.51** 0.56** 0.64** 0.66** 0.71**
Father
19. neg1 1.51 0.50 0.05 −0.04 00.16** 0.21** 0.10* 0.10* 0.11* 0.09 0.52** 0.41** 0.37** 0.32** 0.30** 0.21** 0.39** 0.35** 0.27** 0.29** 0.29** 0.20**
20. neg2 1.52 0.53 0.08 0.04 0.10* 0.21** 0.11* 0.07 0.05 0.09 0.44** 0.49** 0.37** 0.33** 0.27** 0.19** 0.28** 0.41** 0.33** 0.30** 0.28** 0.24** 0.70**
21. neg3 1.51 0.52 0.04 −0.02 0.11* 0.19** 0.19** 0.17** 0.08 0.12* 0.31** 0.37** 0.51** 0.43** 0.36** 0.23** 0.26** 0.33** 0.43** 0.37** 0.30** 0.26** 0.63** 0.67**
22. neg4 1.53 0.51 −0.00 −0.02 0.12* 0.13* 0.11* 0.17** 0.08 0.11* 0.28** 0.28** 0.38** 0.45** 0.39** 0.28** 0.28** 0.28** 0.31** 0.41** 0.30** 0.24** 0.57** 0.61** 0.71**
23. neg5 1.51 0.53 0.01 0.01 0.15** 0.18** 0.16** 0.23** 0.19** 0.21** 0.28** 0.28** 0.33** 0.40** 0.51** 0.37** 0.22** 0.32** 0.33** 0.40** 0.45** 0.41** 0.54** 0.51** 0.62** 0.72**
24. neg6 1.47 0.49 0.07 −0.01 0.11* 0.14** 0.12* 0.23** 0.16** 0.22** 0.18** 0.24** 0.25** 0.31** 0.43** 0.39** 0.18** 0.22** 0.22** 0.26** 0.28** 0.40** 0.45** 0.46** 0.55** 0.58** 0.77**
Mmean, SD standard deviation, SES socio-economic status, Adol.-Moth. adolescent report for mother, Adol.-Fath. adolescent report for father, neg1–neg6 negative interaction score on Wave 1
through Wave 6
*p< 0.05; **p< 0.01; ***p< 0.001
Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2020) 49:119–135 125
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families differ in level and change in parent–adolescent
conflict intensity.
Development of Parent–Adolescent Discrepancies in
Conflict Intensity
Table S3 (in Supplemental information) presents the means
and the variances of the Latent Congruency Models, for
adolescent-mother, and adolescent-father dyads, across the
six waves. The LGCMs on the saved congruence scores
were used to investigate the development of
parent–adolescent discrepancies in conflict intensity
(Cheung 2009). Table S2 (in Supplemental information)
presents the fit indices of models with linear, quadratic, and
piecewise modeling of development. As non-linear growth
showed a better fit compared to linear growth, a piecewise
model to investigate latent change was fit, to ease
interpretability.
Table 2presents the means and variances of the latent
intercepts and slopes for the development of
mother–adolescent and father–adolescent discrepancies in
conflict intensity (see also Fig. 2). In mother–adolescent
dyads, the intercept was positive and significant, indicating
that adolescents reported more conflict intensity than their
mothers. The slope from Wave 1 (adolescent age 13 years)
to Wave 4 (adolescent age 16 years) was positive and sig-
nificant, indicating that, on average, mothers’and adoles-
cents’perceptions of conflict intensity in their relationship
further diverged in this age range. The slope from Wave 4
(adolescent age 16 years) to Wave 6 (adolescent age 18
years) was non-significant, indicating that, on average,
mother–adolescent discrepancies remained stable in this age
range. In father–adolescent dyads, the intercept was close to
zero. That is, on average, fathers and adolescents held
similar perceptions of conflict intensity in their relationship
at Wave 1. However, both slope 1 (Wave 1 to Wave 3;
adolescent age 13 years to 15 years) and slope 2 (Wave 3 to
Wave 6; adolescent age 15 years to 18 years) were positive
and significant, indicating that, over the course of adoles-
cence, adolescents reported increasingly higher conflict
intensity than fathers did. Two cycles that comprise this
increasing divergence can be seen by inspecting the uni-
variate LGCMs on adolescent-father and father–adolescent
reports of conflict intensity. From early to middle adoles-
cence (age 13 years to 15 years), the divergence emerged
because adolescents perceived an increase in conflict
intensity whereas their fathers reported stable levels of
conflict, but from middle to late adolescence (age 15 years
to 18 years), the divergence is due to the decline in per-
ceptions of conflict intensity by fathers while adolescents
reported stable levels of conflict intensity.
Table 2 Growth parameter
estimates (means and variances)
of the latent growth curve
models for adolescent-, mother-,
and father-reported conflict
intensity, and the latent growth
curve models for
mother–adolescent and
father–adolescent discrepancies
in conflict intensity
Intercept Slope 1 Slope 2
Mean Variance Mean Variance Mean Variance
Conflict Intensity
AM 1.67*** 0.197*** 0.045*** 0.021*** −0.021 0.024
AF 1.51*** 0.209*** 0.090*** 0.035*** 0.003 0.027***
MA 1.52*** 0.160*** 0.007 0.009*** −0.036*** 0.011
FA 1.51*** 0.156** 0.013 0.009*** −0.039*** 0.040***
Discrepancies
Mother–Adolescent 00.140*** 0.071*** 0.034*** 0.015*** 0.017 0.021*
Father–adolescent 0.003 0.087*** 0.072*** 0.011** 0.019* 0.010***
AM adolescent report for mother, AF adolescent report for father, MA mother report for adolescent, FA father
report for adolescent
*p< 0.05; **p< 0.01; ***p< 0.001
Fig. 1 Developmental trajectories of adolescent-, and parent-reported
conflict intensity across adolescence
126 Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2020) 49:119–135
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Personality Types
To examine whether personality types could predict the
development of conflict intensity and the heterogeneity
thereof, personality types were first constructed. Table 3
presents the results of the Latent Class Growth Analyses
(Nagin 2005). For both adolescents and parents, a solution
with three classes was selected, upon theoretical, inter-
pretative, and statistical grounds. For adolescents, a 3-class
solution had lower BIC and higher entropy compared to a 2-
class solution, and a significant VLMR-LRT. A 4-class
solution had lower BIC and higher entropy, but a non-
significant VLMR-LRT compared to the 3-class solution.
Further, interpreting the four classes became difficult
because two classes overlapped significantly (see also Figs
S1–S2 in Supplemental information). Adolescents were
roughly equally spread among the three classes: 183 ado-
lescents (36.8%) in class 1, 156 (31.4%) in class 2, and 158
(31.8%) in class 3. Inspecting the mean intercepts and
slopes of the Big Five of these classes (Fig. S1 and Table
S4, in Supplemental information) led us to label them
“Resilients,”“Overcontrollers,”and “Undercontrollers,”
respectively. Resilients scored high on all Big Five factors.
Overcontrollers scored the lowest on Emotional Stability
and Extraversion, and Undercontrollers scored the lowest
scores on Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness.
For parents, a solution with 3-classes showed lower BIC
and higher entropy compared to a 2-class solution, and
higher BIC but still higher entropy compared to a 4-class
solution. Inspection of the 3- and the 4-class solutions
showed overlap among classes in the 4-class solution (see
also Figs S3 and S4 in Supplemental information).
Inspecting the mean intercepts and slopes of the Big Five of
these classes (Fig. S3 and Table S5, in Supplemental
information), led us to label them “Resilients,”“Over-
controllers,”and “Undercontrollers,”respectively. Most
parents (mothers: n=245, 49.3%; fathers: n=211, 46.2%)
were in the Resilient class, with the rest being equally
distributed as Overcontrollers (mothers: n=135, 27.2%;
fathers: n=118, 25.8%), and Undercontrollers (mothers: n
=117, 23.5%; fathers: n=128, 28%). Resilients scored
significantly higher than the other two classes on all Big
Five factors, and they also showed increasing levels on all
factors, contrary to the other classes. Overcontrollers
showed the lowest Emotional Stability, Extraversion, and
Openness, whereas Undercontrollers showed the lowest
Conscientiousness.
Personality Types and the Development of
Parent–Adolescent Conflict Intensity, and
Discrepancies in Conflict Intensity
Three dummy variables were created, indicating the pre-
sence of each personality type. A series of analyses were
run to compare Overcontrollers and Undercontrollers with
Resilients. In these analyses, the intercepts and slopes of
conflict intensity and discrepancies in conflict intensity were
regressed on the dummy variables indicating Over-
controllers (0 =no, 1 =yes) and Undercontrollers (0 =no,
1=yes). To compare Overcontrollers with Under-
controllers, a series of analyses were run using Resilient
dummy and Undercontroller dummy as predictors.
Table 3 Fit Indices for the latent class growth analyses models with
different numbers of classes
aBIC Entropy VLMR-LRT
Adolescent
One class 38,322 ––
Two classes 36,717 0.876 1656**
Three classes 35,550 0.892 1217*
Four classes 35,116 0.905 492
Five classes 34,765 0.886 404
Parents
One class 71,631 ––
Two classes 67,017 0.915 4655***
Three classes 65,076 0.918 1991
Four classes 63,406 0.916 1708
Five classes 62,304 0.916 1139
aBIC sample-adjusted Bayesian Information Criterion, VLMR-LRT
Vuong-Lo-Mendel-Rubin Likelihood Ratio Test
*p< 0.05; **p< 0.01; ***p< 0.001
Fig. 2 Developmental trajectories of adolescent-father, and adolescent-
mother absolute discrepancies in conflict intensity across adolescence
Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2020) 49:119–135 127
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Table 4presents the regression coefficients of the inter-
cepts of conflict intensity and discrepancies in conflict
intensity on adolescent, maternal, and paternal personality.
No significant results emerged regarding regressions of
slopes, indicating that personality did not predict the rate of
change in conflict intensity, and therefore, these results are
omitted from the table.
Regarding adolescent personality, the intercept of
adolescent-reported conflict intensity with mothers and with
fathers was higher for undercontrolling and for over-
controlling adolescents than for Resilients. Under-
controlling adolescents had a higher intercept of conflict
intensity reported by mothers than Resilients. Finally,
father–adolescent discrepancies were larger for over-
controlling adolescents than for resilient adolescents.
When considering maternal personality, the intercepts of
both mother- and adolescent-reported conflict intensity were
significantly higher for undercontrolling and over-
controlling mothers than for resilient mothers. No differ-
ences were found between undercontrolling and
overcontrolling mothers. Also, no significant differences
emerged on mother–adolescent discrepancies.
For paternal personality, the intercept of father-reported
conflict intensity was significantly higher for under-
controlling and overcontrolling fathers than for resilient
fathers. The intercept of father–adolescent discrepancies
was lower for undercontrolling fathers than for resilient
fathers, indicating that undercontrolling fathers reported
higher conflict compared to their adolescents, thus, larger
discrepancies (the overall intercept was zero, see Table 2).
Sensitivity Analysis
Given gender differences in parent–adolescent relationship
quality (De Goede et al. 2009), and the possible influence of
family socioeconomic status on parent–adolescent relation-
ship quality, additional analyses were run in which the
intercept and the two slopes of each model were regressed on
gender and SES. The regression coefficients of the intercepts
and slopes on gender and SES were mostly non-significant,
except for mother-reported conflict intensity. In that case,
gender and SES had a significant effect on the intercept only,
indicating that mothers of girls and mothers in lower-SES
families reported a higher level of conflict intensity. As can
be seen in Table S6 and Table S7 of the supplementary
information, 4 out of the 18 means in the latent growth
models (research questions 1 and 2), and 2 out of the 36
regression coefficients regarding the effect of personality
types (research question 3) changed significance. However,
the effect sizes did not change substantially, indicating that
including covariates increased the standard errors.
The following differences emerged in the models that
controlled for gender and SES, compared to the models
without covariates. Father-reported conflict intensity did not
show a significant decrease from middle-to-late adoles-
cence. Similarly, mother–adolescent discrepancies did not
increase significantly during early-to-middle adolescence,
but they did increase significantly from middle-to-late
adolescence. Father–adolescent discrepancies did not
increase further in middle-to-late adolescence. Finally, the
effect of undercontrolling adolescents on mother-reported
conflict intensity and the effect of overcontrolling adoles-
cents on adolescent-reported conflict intensity with fathers
turned non-significant.
Discussion
Parent–adolescent relationships tend to be characterized by
conflicts. The intensity of those conflicts can be perceived
differently by parents and adolescents. Conflict intensity
and discrepancies in the perceptions of parents and ado-
lescents might reflect the restructuring of the
parent–adolescent relationship that takes place during this
period (e.g., De Los Reyes and Ohannessian 2016). In
addition, adolescents’and parents’personality types might
affect how the parent–adolescent relationship transforms.
Past research has shown that according to adolescents,
conflict intensity changes curvilinearly across adolescence
(De Goede et al. 2009), but the views of parents are often
overlooked. Given the significance of parent–adolescent
conflict intensity and discrepancies in parents’and adoles-
cents’perceptions for adolescent adjustment (e.g., Branje
2018), the current study examined the trajectories of
parent–adolescent conflict intensity as perceived by ado-
lescents, mothers, and fathers, as well as the trajectories of
the discrepancies in perceptions of conflict intensity.
Additionally, the current study examined the role of par-
ental and adolescent personality types in these trajectories.
Development of Parent–Adolescent Conflict
Intensity across Adolescence
By addressing mothers’, fathers’, and adolescents’percep-
tions of conflict intensity, the results of this study add to the
knowledge that has resulted from past research regarding
conflict intensity trajectories. First, in agreement with some
previous studies (De Goede et al. 2009; McGue et al. 2005),
and contrary to others (Galambos and Almeida 1992), this
study found that adolescent-reported conflict intensity
increases from early to middle adolescence. Second, by
following the same adolescents beyond middle adolescence,
this study showed that adolescent-reported conflict intensity
is stable from middle to late adolescence. Third, and most
importantly, this study showed that the trajectories of con-
flict intensity differed among parents and adolescents, such
128 Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2020) 49:119–135
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Table 4 Regression coefficients (Unstandardized Β, and Standardized β) and confidence intervals for the prediction of the intercepts of conflict intensity and discrepancies in conflict intensity by
adolescent and parental personality type
Adolescent Mother Father
U versus R O versus R U versus O U versus R O versus R U versus O U versus R O versus R U versus O
Parent–adolescent conflict intensity
AM intercept
B 0.150 0.149 0.001 0.133 0.235 −0.102 –––
C.I. 0.03–0.27 0.02–0.27 −0.14–0.14 0.01–0.26 0.11–0.36 −0.26–0.05 –––
β0.158** 0.157* 0.001 0.127* 0.234*** −0.097 –––
MA intercept
B 0.119 0.072 0.048 0.129 0.132 −0.003 –––
C.I. 0.01–0.0.23 −0.04–0.18 −0.06–0.16 0.02–0.24 0.02–0.24 −0.13–0.13 –––
β0.139* 0.083 0.056 0.137* 0.148* −0.004 –––
AF intercept
B 0.145 0.125 0.019 –––−0.019 0.043 −0.061
C.I. 0.03–0.26 0.01–0.25 −0.11–0.15 –––−0.14–0.10 −0.09–0.18 −0.21–0.08
β0.147* 0.127* 0.020 –––−0.019 0.042 −0.062
FA intercept
B 0.063 −0.032 0.095 –––0.123 0.147 −0.024
C.I. −0.06–0.18 −0.13–0.07 −0.02–0.21 –––0.02–0.23 0.03–0.27 −0.16–0.11
β0.074 −0.038 0.112 –––0.140* 0.163* −0.027
Parent–adolescent discrepancies in conflict intensity
M–A discrepancies intercept
B 0.032 0.071 −0.039 0.018 0.085 −0.067 –––
C.I. −0.07–0.13 −0.03–0.17 −0.14–0.07 −0.08–0.11 −0.02–0.19 −0.18–0.05 –––
β0.057 0.125 −0.068 0.029 0.141 −0.106 –––
F–A discrepancies intercept
B 0.083 0.120 −0.037 –––−0.135 −0.089 −0.046
C.I. −0.01–0.17 0.03–0.21 −0.13–0.06 –––−0.22–0.05 −0.19–0.01 −0.15–0.06
β0.130 0.188** −0.058 –––−0.205** −0.132 −0.070
UUndercontroller, RResilient, OOvercontroller, AM adolescent report for mother, MA mother report for adolescent, AF adolescent report for father, FA father report for adolescent, M-A
discrepancies between the adolescent–mother, and mother–adolescent reports, F-A discrepancies between the adolescent–father, and father–adolescent reports C.I. confidence intervals
*p< 0.05; **p< 0.01; ***p< 0.001
Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2020) 49:119–135 129
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that parents perceived initially stable, and then declining
levels of conflict intensity. These results offer more clarity
to the developmental trajectories of parent–adolescent
conflict intensity by showing what trend is perceived
by whom.
In agreement with the theoretically expected gap in par-
ents’and adolescents’expectations for autonomy (Deković
et al. 1997), adolescents perceived interactions with their
parents as increasingly negative from early to middle ado-
lescence, while parents experienced stable levels of nega-
tivity. Given that conflict intensity assessed the mutual
negativity in the dyadic relationship, and not specifically
how annoyed adolescents get with their parents, or parents
with adolescents, this increasing adolescent-reported conflict
intensity implies that there are factors that affect adolescents’
perceptions. For example, recent evidence linking increasing
parent–adolescent conflicts with pubertal timing and tempo
supports this notion (Marceau et al. 2015).
The results of the current study suggest that in the per-
ceptions of adolescents, the intensity of conflict remains
stable from middle to late adolescence, and stays higher than
in parents’perceptions, which reflected a decrease in conflict
intensity. These findings are in line with earlier findings that
adolescents perceived higher conflict engagement than par-
ents (Van Doorn et al. 2011). The results show that the
improvement of parent-child relationship quality is not
reflected similarly in adolescents’and parents’perceptions.
The decrease in conflict intensity after middle adolescence as
perceived by parents might be a sign of relationship
improvement. But at the same time, adolescent-perceived
levels remained stable, and they were still higher compared
to before middle adolescence. Therefore, relationship
improvement is not reflected in adolescent-perceived conflict
intensity. Given that adolescents become more autonomous
from parents after middle-adolescence (Hadiwijaya et al.
2017), parents might perceive this as relationship improve-
ment, but adolescents still feel that there is an elevated
tension in the relationship with their parents.
Development of Parent–Adolescent Discrepancies in
Conflict Intensity across Adolescence
In agreement with theoretical views on the change in
parent–adolescent relationship during adolescence (Collins
and Laursen 1992), increasing discrepancies from early to
middle adolescence were found. This finding concurs with the
notion that during adolescence, a needs-opportunities mis-
match emerges (Eccles et al. 1993), which leads to increasing
parent–adolescent discrepancies. Besides, the fact that parent-
perceived conflict intensity is lower than adolescents’per-
ceptions indicates that adolescents’increasing frustration is
not fully outed. Indeed, poor communication is one reason for
discrepant parent–adolescent perceptions (De Los Reyes et al.
2016;Ehrlichetal.2016). Even though overall low negativity
prevails, parents and adolescents hold all the more diverging
views on how much negativity exists in their relationship.
The results concur with existing theoretical accounts
(e.g., De Los Reyes and Ohannessian 2016), and empirical
research (De Haan et al. 2017) that discrepancies are useful
to explore further because they are not measurement error.
Measurement error was taken into account in the current
study by applying a latent-variable technique (Córdova
et al. 2016). Additionally, if discrepancies were random
error, then the meaningful longitudinal patterns that were
found in this study would be unlikely to emerge (De Los
Reyes and Kazdin 2005).
The current study offers empirical support to the pro-
position of the Operations Triad Model (De Los Reyes and
Ohannessian 2016), which stipulates that diverging views
on family-related concepts reflect evolving family dynam-
ics. In agreement with this proposition, the divergence in
parent–adolescent perceptions found in this study indicates
two underlying processes in the family. The increasing
discrepancies in early-to-middle adolescence were mainly
due to the increasing intensity of conflict as perceived by
adolescents. The further divergence from middle-to-late
adolescence in the father–adolescent relationship could
mostly be attributed to the decreasing negativity as per-
ceived by fathers. Thus, these results show that the
restructuring of the parent–adolescent relationship (Hadi-
wijaya et al. 2017) is not just a reflection of adolescent
maturation, but also change in parental views.
As noted recently (De Los Reyes et al. 2019), a devel-
opmental approach to discrepancies can help elucidate
whether increased discrepancies reflect normative
parent–adolescent dynamics during adolescence or risk. The
average trajectories found in the current study show that
increased parent–adolescent discrepancies seem to be nor-
mative. However, given that discrepancies have been shown
to have negative repercussions for adolescent adaptation
(Nelemans et al. 2016), the significant variance around the
increasing divergence found in the current study might
imply a threat to the relationship, for some dyads. Like a
double-edged sword, the decrease in father-perceived con-
flict intensity and the concomitant increase in discrepancies
might prove a threat for some father–adolescent dyads.
Future research examining the co-development of
parent–adolescent discrepancies with parent and adolescent
adaptation may help elucidate this possibility.
Personality Typologies and Development of
Parent–Adolescent (Discrepancies in) Conflict
Intensity
Adolescent and parental personality significantly and
meaningfully predicted differences in both the trajectories
130 Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2020) 49:119–135
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of parent–adolescent conflict intensity and the trajectories of
parent–adolescent discrepancies in conflict intensity. As
expected, resilient adolescents, mothers, and fathers repor-
ted the lowest levels of conflict intensity, whereas resilient
adolescents, and fathers also showed the lowest dis-
crepancies. These results support the hypothesis that indi-
vidual differences, operationalized as personality types,
explain differences in how much negativity parents and
adolescents experience in their relationship, as well as how
differently they perceive their relationship (Belsky 1984).
Across reporters, personality type had an effect on self-
reported conflict intensity (“actor effects”). Compared to
Overcontrollers and Underconrtollers, resilient adolescents,
mothers, and fathers perceived lower conflict intensity,
which is in agreement with extant research (Denissen et al.
2007). Having a more flexible personality type allows
individuals to more easily adapt to contextual demands
(Block and Block 1980), and might as such be associated
with less intense conflictual interactions.
Furthermore, personality type also had an effect on the
conflict intensity as perceived by the partner (“partner
effects”), but this pattern held only for the
mother–adolescent dyad. Specifically, mothers perceived
undercontrolling adolescents as the most aggravating,
implying that having a “difficult”adolescent child is more
emotionally demanding for the mothers. This finding is in
agreement with studies showing, for example, that
parent–adolescent relationships tend to be worse in families
in which adolescents have more internalizing or externa-
lizing problems (Crocetti et al. 2016), or difficulties in their
identity development (Crocetti et al. 2017). Other studies,
however, failed to find an effect of having an “easy”versus
a difficult adolescent on parenting (de Haan et al. 2012).
Similarly, adolescents with resilient mothers perceived
lower conflict intensity than adolescents with over-
controlling or undercontrolling mothers. Thus, having an
undercontrolling or an overcontrolling mother poses a
challenge in adolescents, as it leads them to experience
higher negativity, compared to having a resilient mother.
The fact that no partner effects emerged in the
father–adolescent dyad indicates that the level of frustration
fathers and adolescents perceive in their relationship does
not depend on the dyadic partner’s personality.
In addition, personality types were also associated with
discrepancies, yet only in father–adolescent dyads. In dyads
with overcontrolling adolescents, compared to dyads with a
resilient adolescent, the divergence among adolescent and
paternal perceptions of conflict intensity was higher. Perhaps
overcontrolling adolescents do not express as openly their
negative emotions in their relationship with their father,
leaving fathers less aware of the negativity in their relation-
ship. Additionally, paternal personality type made a difference
in father–adolescent conflict intensity discrepancies. Being an
undercontrolling father had a negative impact on
father–adolescent discrepancies compared to being a resilient
father, indicating that in these dyads fathers reported more
conflict intensity than adolescents. Because, on average, the
intercept of father–adolescent discrepancies was zero, the
negative coefficient found for undercontrolling fathers indi-
cates that this type is associated with higher discrepancies,
compared to resilient fathers. Given the detrimental effects
specifically of father–adolescent divergence for adolescent
adaptation (e.g., Nelemans et al. 2016), this finding means that
for adolescents with an undercontrolling father the transition to
a more egalitarian parent–adolescent relationship likely starts
upon a more turbulent basis. Furthermore, that the develop-
ment of discrepancies does not depend on personality types
indicates that, in agreement with the idea of the diverging
operations of the Operations Triad Model (De Los Reyes and
Ohannessian 2016), the development of parent–adolescent
discrepancies in conflict intensity may reflect normative pro-
cesses of adolescent development, irrespective of individual
differences.
Maternal and paternal personality types were associated
with parent–adolescent discrepancies differently.
Mother–adolescent discrepancies were predicted by neither
maternal nor adolescent personality, whereas
father–adolescent discrepancies were predicted by both
adolescent (being an Overcontroller compared to being
Resilient) and paternal (being an Undercontroller, compared
to being Resilient) personality. It seems that
mother–adolescent discrepancies may reflect normative
developmental trends in the mother–adolescent relationship,
whereas the father–adolescent discrepancies are more open
to other effects. The present study adds to recent research
showing that, compared to the maternal role, the paternal
role may be more prone to external influences, such as the
influence of the interparental relationship (Mastrotheodoros
et al. 2019) or the mental health of their wife (Kouros et al.
2014).
Limitations, Strengths and Future Directions
Some limitations should be taken into account in this study.
First, the study consisted of self-reported data. Even though
self-report can be a strong method to assess internal states,
conflict intensity could also be assessed with observations
of parent–adolescent interactions. Using observations along
with discrepancies in self-reports might elucidate further
aspects of the transforming parent–adolescent relationship.
Second, the sample consisted mainly of middle- and upper-
middle class Dutch families and results might differ in
lower SES families. For example, lower SES families might
experience higher levels of stress and might lack coping
mechanisms that would allow them to withhold stress from
spilling over to create conflict (Conger et al. 2000).
Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2020) 49:119–135 131
Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved.

Furthermore, the sample comes from the Netherlands, a
relatively affluent western country, with low unemployment
rates and a good social security network. These may make
for a higher level of family well-being compared to other
countries. This characteristic, coupled with the upper-
middle class SES of this sample, might imply that the
generalizability of this study may be limited.
In spite of these limitations, this study offers new
insights into the development of parent–adolescent conflict
intensity, by using a relatively large, multi-informant, and
longitudinal design following families across adolescence.
Specifically, this is the first study to investigate the trajec-
tories of conflict intensity across adolescence, taking into
account the views of mothers, fathers, and adolescents.
Also, this is among the first studies to investigate the tra-
jectories of parent–adolescent discrepancies, across ado-
lescence, while taking into account the personality types of
mothers, fathers, and adolescents. Hence, the current study
offers new insights into how the parent–adolescent rela-
tionship transforms during adolescence.
Future studies could benefit from examining the trajec-
tories of discrepancies in an expanded developmental time-
frame, also including the period before and after adoles-
cence. A more comprehensive view of how discrepancies
develop could be reached by incorporating mother and
father reports, along with child reports for mothers and
fathers separately in longitudinal studies of other periods of
development. In addition, investigating the development of
family relationships from the perspective of different family
members along with indices of adaptation might provide a
better understanding of the restructuring of the
parent–adolescent relationship. Similarly, investigating
possible outcomes of the rate of change in discrepancies,
controlling for the level of discrepancies, could prove a
useful next step in discrepancy research.
Conclusion
Parent–adolescent conflict intensity is one aspect of ado-
lescence that has attracted much attention from the popular
media and the research community alike (Laursen et al.
1998). Conflict is often a mechanism that forges change in
the parent–adolescent relationship (Branje 2018), and,
therefore, it is important to understand how it develops
during adolescence. However, parents and adolescents
experience their conflicts differently (Van Lissa et al. 2015),
and taking parental and adolescent perceptions into account
is necessary to get a comprehensive picture of conflict
intensity. By incorporating more than one informant, how-
ever, discrepancies arise among the different reports, and
these discrepancies can indicate family processes (De Los
Reyes and Ohannessian 2016), like the restructuring of the
parent–adolescent relationship. This study investigated the
trajectories of parent–adolescent conflict intensity across
adolescence, according to mothers, fathers, and adolescents.
Also, this study examined the trajectories of
parent–adolescent discrepancies and the predictive role of
parental and adolescent personality in the development of
conflict intensity and discrepancies in conflict intensity. The
results showed that parents and adolescents hold different
views of conflict intensity, and these differences give rise to
discrepancies. Conflict intensity increased only according to
adolescents. The two cycles of discrepancies that emerged
indicate that the restructuring of the parent–adolescent
relationship is not only a matter of adolescent maturation
but a matter of parent–adolescent alignment. The level of
conflict intensity in the parent–adolescent relationship was
lower in families with resilient parents or adolescents,
implying that the way toward parent–adolescent alignment
might be shorter for families with resilient parents or ado-
lescents. These findings have implications for under-
standing adolescence, giving insights into the processes of
re-alignment of the parent–adolescent relationship. In the
process of re-alignment, parent–adolescent discrepancies
can be normative, with adolescents feeling more frustrated
than parents, also during late adolescence.
Authors’Contributions S.M. conceived of the study, performed the
statistical analyses, interpreted the results, and drafted the manuscript;
J.G. was involved in the interpretation of the results, and drafted the
manuscript critically; M.D. was involved in the interpretation of the
results, and drafted the manuscript critically; and W.M., and S.B.
designed the study, coordinated the data collection, were involved in
the interpretation of results, and revised the manuscript critically. All
authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Funding Data from the RADAR study were used. RADAR has been
financially supported by main grants from the Netherlands Organisa-
tion for Scientific Research (GB-MAGW 480-03-005, GB-MAGW
480-08-006, GB-MAGW 481-08-014), from a grant to the Consortium
Individual Development (Grant 024.001.003) from the Netherlands
Organization for Scientific Research, and from grants by Stichting
Achmea Slachtoffer en Samenleving (SASS).
Data Sharing and Declaration Data from wave 1 to 6 analysed during
the current study are available in the DANS repository (https://doi.org/
10.17026/dans-zrb-v5wp).
Compliance with Ethical Standards
Conflict of Interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of
interest.
Ethical Approval All procedures performed in studies involving
human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of
the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964
Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical
standards. The board of the local research institute, the Medical Ethical
Committee of the Utrecht Medical Centre and the VU Medical Centre,
The Netherlands, approved this study.
132 Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2020) 49:119–135
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Informed Consent Informed consent was obtained from all individual
participants included in the study, for each wave separately after
explaining their role and their rights in the study and before starting
data collection.
Publisher’s note: Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to
jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://crea
tivecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use,
distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give
appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link
to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
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Stefanos Mastrotheodoros is a doctoral researcher at the
Department of Youth and Family, Utrecht University, the
Netherlands. He holds a PhD from the University of Athens,
Greece, where he studied the development of personal identity from
middle to late adolescence. He currently conducts a second PhD at
Utrecht University, investigating the determinants of parenting and the
development of parent–adolescent relationships during adolescence.
Jolien Van der Graaff is an Assistant Professor at the Department of
Youth and Family, Utrecht University, the Netherlands. She received
her PhD in 2014. Her research focuses on the development of empathy
and prosocial behavior in adolescence, as well as the associations with
adolescents’relationships and social adjustment.
Maja Dekovićis a Professor at the Department of Clinical Child and
Family Studies, at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Her major
research interests include the development of child and adolescent
problem behavior and family and peer relationships.
Wim Meeus is a Professor at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. He
received his doctorate in Social Psychology from Utrecht University,
the Netherlands. His major research interests include identity and
personality development, personal relationships, and psychological
problems in adolescence.
Susan Branje is a Professor at Utrecht University, the Netherlands.
She received her doctorate in 2003 from the Radboud University
Nijmegen. Her major research interests include understanding the
developmental changes in adolescents’relationships with parents,
siblings, friends, and romantic partners and the associations with
development of adolescent personality, identity, and adjustment.
Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2020) 49:119–135 135
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