Reciprocal pathways between American and Chinese early adolescents' sense of responsibility and disclosure to parents

Abstract

This research examined the reciprocal pathways between youth's sense of responsibility to parents and disclosure to them during early adolescence in the United States and China. Four times over the seventh and eighth grades, 825 American and Chinese youth (M(age) = 12.73 years) reported on their sense of responsibility to parents and disclosure of everyday activities to them. Autoregressive latent trajectory models revealed that the more youth felt responsible to parents, the more they subsequently disclosed to them in both the United States and China. The reverse was also true: The more youth disclosed to parents, the more responsible they felt to them over time. The strength of these reciprocal pathways increased as youth progressed through early adolescence.