The roles of parents and friends as information sources regarding children's and adolescents' adjustment

Abstract

Others' reports of youth distress (e.g., parent, aggregated peer reports) typically evidence small to moderate agreement with youth self-reports (e.g., Achenbach et al., 1987; De Los Reyes & Kazdin, 2005). Recent findings demonstrate that children and adolescents' close friends also may be knowledgeable of youth adjustment (i.e., depressive symptoms; Swenson & Rose, 2003). The present research extends prior findings on friends' knowledge of adjustment by (a) directly comparing self-friend agreement to self-parent agreement, (b) expanding the domains of adjustment considered to include behavioral as well as emotional adjustment, and (c) examining the moderating influences of relationship quality and self-disclosure on self-other agreement. Relations between friend- and self-reported externalizing problems were stronger than for internalizing symptoms. Significant relations also emerged between mother- and self-reports of both internalizing and externalizing symptoms. When friend- and mother-reports were considered simultaneously, only mother-reported distress significantly predicted youth self-reported internalizing adjustment. For externalizing adjustment, however, both friend- and mother-reported distress uniquely predicted self-reported symptoms. Unique relations were moderated by relationship quality and by self-disclosure.