c 2010 Christopher Rackauckas

Not For Print

Adolescent Disclosure and its Relationship to Parental Monitoring andthe Legitimacy of Parental Authority
Christopher Rackauckas
Oberlin College

However, a number of recent studies have suggested thatadolescents’ disclosure have unique associations with parenting (Smetana et al., 2006). A study by Noller andCallan (1990) revealed that adolescents reported not disclosing much information to their parents, but the amount of
disclosure depended on the gender of both the parent andthe adolescent. Adolescent girls reported more disclosure tomothers than to fathers, while adolescent boys reported equal
disclosure to both parents. However, it should be noted that
this study lacks a conceptual framework and does not haveenough of a systematic approach for understanding the typeof issues adolescents disclose and conceal from their parents(Smetana et al., 2006).
This raises the question as to the extent that parental characteristics play in the amount of information an adolescent
will disclose. In order to attempt answering that question, ourstudy will focus on the parenting characteristic of parental
monitoring. Parental monitoring, “a set of correlated parenting behaviors involved attention and tracking of the child’s
whereabouts, activities, and adaptions” (Dishion & McMahon, 1998), has been shown to have heavy implications in
an adolescent’s development. Adolescents tend to have moredeviant friends when parental monitoring is low (Fridrich &Flannery, 1995) and tend are more likely to be associatedwith peers that support drug use (Chassin et al., 1993). Also,
Kerr and Stattin (2000) found a weak correlation between
parental monitoring and disclosure (R=.41). These findings
suggest that parental monitoring may play a role in adolescent disclosure. However, while past studies have studied
more extreme cases of parental monitoring, this study focuses on more everyday aspects of parental monitoring anddifferences in the outcomes may occur due to the differencesin the construct.
We hypothesize that a relationship exists between parental
monitoring and disclosure. Also, we hypothesize that the relationship may differ with gender. Buhrmester and Prager(1995) found that females self-disclose more than males.
Also, Noller and Callan (1990) found a tendency for adolescent girls report more disclosure to mothers than fathers
while adolescent boys tend to report equal disclosure to bothparents. These findings combined with the fact that boys
have a tendency to lie more (Engles & Finkenauer 2006) andkeep more secrets from their parents as they get older (Keijsers, Branje, Frijins, Finkenauer, & Meeus, 2010). Lastly,
because our study only deals with mothers (or other female
gendered guardians), our measures would only increase thedifference between the adolescent disclosure from the girls
and the adolescent disclosure from the boys. Thus, we hy-

It’s not uncommon for early adolescents to begin to keep secrets. In fact, mastering this “art of secrecy” seems to be partof normal development (Peskin, 1992; Frijns, Finkenauer,
Vermulst, & Engels, 2005). As the child enters early adulthood, this ability to conceal information from others appears
to become an adaptive skill for managing everyday social interactions (Schlenker & Weigold,1992).
This paper will focus on the related but distinct topic ofdisclosure. Although past research has shown that disclosureand secrecy are inversely correlated (Finkenauer et al., 2005),
research suggests that disclosure and secrecy are empiricallydistinct. Adolescent disclosure to parents, the willingness toconvey information to the adolescent’s parent, differs in thefact that it deals with conveying information to the parent or
telling the parent the information whereas secrecy deals withintentionally witholding information.
There is a debate as to what determines an adolescent’s
disclosure behavior. Some models suggest that disclosure
is more related to characteristics of the child (Kerr & Stattin, 2000). Others suggest that disclosure more related tothe characteristics of the parenting (Fletcher, Steinberg, &Williams-Wheeler, 2004; Hawk, 2010). Our study will examine the extent to which the characteristics of the child predict disclosure and the extent to which characteristics of theparenting predict disclosure.
Past evidence suggests that disclosure may have to do withthe adolescent’s characteristics. Specifically, some past studies imply that there is a relationship between disclosure toparents and a child’s ideas about legitimate parental authority. Studies have shown that adolescents consistently reject
their parents’ legitimate authority to regulate personal issues(Smetana 1988, 2000, 2006). However, both the adolescentsand the parents agree that the parents have legitimate authority over moral issues, conventional issues, and prudential issues. This, in turn, suggests that adolescents may believe thatthey are only obligated to disclose information about theirmoral, conventional, and prudential behavior to their parents(Buhrmester & Prager, 1995). Due to the tendency shown inthese studies, we hypothesize that there exists a relationshipbetween the legitimacy of parental authority and adolescentdisclosure such that higher amounts of adolescent disclosure
are associated with a lower degrees of legitimacy of parental
authority.

This article is not for print. Please contact the author before citing. c 2010

1

2

CHRISTOPHER RACKAUCKAS

pothesize that the relationship between adolescent girls disclosure and parental monitoring will be stronger than the relationship between adolescent boys disclosure and parental
monitoring.
We have reason to believe that the amount of disclosuredue to parental monitoring may change with grade level. It
has been shown that with changes in grade level, children
increasingly view parental monitoring as indicative of incompetence (Pomerantz 2000). It is suggested that the adolescents may begin to try to become more autonomous todecrease the stigma associated with the perceived incompetence and thus begin to disclose less to their parents. This
would be compatable with the theory from Finkenauer et al.
(2005) which predicted that adolescents may use concealment to “liberate themselves from parental supervision” and,as a result, regulate the parent’s access to information. Therefore, we hypothesize that the relationship between disclosure
and parental monitoring will become stronger as the adolescent ages.

Methods
Participants
55 families participated in the study. Participants wererecruited using a calling list of all 5th and 6th graders in the
Oberlin School District. A letter was sent to them that gave
the web address for the representative website and the participants were called at most 3 times. The age of the children ranged from 9 to 13 with a mean of 10.76. 54.5%of the children were boys and 45.5% were girls. 89.1% of
the guardians were the child’s mother, 7.3% were the child’s
adopted mother, and 3.6% were the child’s grandmother. The
mother’s years of education ranged from 9 to 27 with a meanof 15.5. 71% of the guardians identified as Caucasian, 16.1%
identified as African American, 5.7% identified as Hispanic,
1.9% identified as other, and 3.6% of the guardians identified themselves as multiethnic. 54.8% of the children identified as Caucasian, 22% identified as African American, 5.7%
identified as Hispanic, and 18.2% of the children we identified by their guardian as multiethnic.

Procedures
Each participant was assesed on various biological factors,
filled out questionaires, and completed two tasks. Upon entering the lab, participants received a scripted introduction by
the researchers. They were then given a consent form, briefly
discussed the informed consent, and were told what activities
would take place. Next, the researchers hooked the participant up to a heart monitor and measured their heart rate. The
participants were then given a questionnaire. Shortly after,
the researchers collected a spit sample. Then the participants
were asked to build a squid with K’Nex in a way such thatthe mother could only read the directions and the child could
only touch the K’Nex. Right afterwards the participants wereshown a video of themselves doing the tasks and were told
to analyze it. The participants then completed another questionnaire and the researchers took two more spit samples 15

minutes apart. The participants were then debriefed and paid
for their visit.

Measures
Parental Monitoring. The adolescents reported on the extent to which their mothers tried to know about who theirfriends were, where they went at night, how they spent theirmoney, what they did with their free time, where they weremost of the afternoons after school, what made them angry,
what made them happy, what they worried about, what was
really important to them, and who was really important tothem. Adolescents reported on a 1-3 scale with 1 indicatingthat their mother “doesn’t try”, 2 indicating that their mother“tries a little”, and 3 indicating that she “tries a lot”. A meanscore was calculated (M = 2.4, SD =.53, α= .95).
Disclosure. The adolescents reported on how they would
normally react when they disagreed with their parent on certain issues. Example issues included what they wore, what
they did on the computer, who their friends were, and where
they went after school. There were a total of 19 issues. The
adolescents reported on a 1-3 scale where 1 indicates thathe/she would normally “tell her what I really think”, 2 indicates that he/she would normally “keep some things to [his orher] self”, and 3 indicates that he/she would normally “hidewhat [he/she] really thinks”. A mean score was calculated(M=2.2, SD =.92, α= .88).
Legitimacy of Parental Authority. The adolescents reported on the extent to which it is ok for their mother to set
rules on certain issues. Example issues included what theywore, what they did on the computer, who their friends were,
and where they went after school. There were a total of 19
issues. The adolescents reported on a 1-3 scale where 1 indicates that it is not ok for their mother to set rules about the
subject, a 2 indicates it is sometimes ok for their mother to set
rules about the subject, and a 3 indicates ok for their motherto set rules about the subject. A mean score was calculated(M=1.8, SD =.23, α= .73).

Results
To test whether a relationship exists between parental
monitoring and disclosure, a correlation was used. No
significant correlation was found (R =-.12, t=4.55, df=49,
p=.362).
To test whether a relationship exists between legitimacyof parental authority and disclosure, a correlation was used.
No significant correlation was found (R=.10, t=.70, df=48,
p=.49).
To test the whether there was a difference in the correlation of parental monitoring and disclosure between adolecent
boys and girls, two independent correlations were computed(Rboys =.04, Nboys =27, Rgirls =-.26, Ngirls =22). The correlation coefficients were compared using Fisher’s R-Z transformation to test the difference between the correlation ofparental monitoring and disclosure for adolescent boys andgirls. No significant difference was found (z=1.0, p=.32).
To test whether there was a difference in the correlationof parental monitoring and disclosure between adolescent

PARENTAL MONITORING AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO ADOLESCENT DISCLOSURE

boys and girls, two independent correlations were computed(R5thGrade =.03, N5thGrade =26, R6thGrade =-.25, N6thGrade =23,).
The correlation coefficients were compared using Fisher’s
R-Z transformation to test the difference between the correlation of parental monitoring and disclosure for 5th gradersand 6th graders. No significant difference was found (z=.93,
p=.35).

Discussion
An understanding of the relationship between disclosure,legitimacy of parental authority, and parenting characteristics
can lead to major insights into the adolescent’s development.
Past research had indicated that there would be a relationshipbetween adolescent disclosure and legitimacy of parental authority and between adolescent disclosure and parental monitoring. However, our hypothesis that there would be a relationship in both cases was not supported by the evidence.
Furthermore, we hypothesized that age and gender would
lead to differences in the relationship between adolescent disclosure and parental monitoring. Our expectations were that
there would be an strengthing of the relationship between
adolescent disclosure and parental monitoring with age andgirls would exhibit a stronger relationship between parental
monitoring and disclosure than boys. However, neither ofthese hypotheses’ were supported by the evidence. There
was no significant difference in the strength of the relationship between adolescent disclosure and parental monitoring
between ages or genders.
Past research has shown that characteristics of the childplay a crucial role in the development of the adolescent. It
was found that the types of issues that the child would disclose depends on the child’s view of legitimate parental authority (Smetana 1998, 2000). Adolescents consistently reject the legitimacy parental authority to know about personal
issues, while adolescents’ and the parents’ do agree that theparents have legitimate authority over moral issues, conventional issues, and prudential issues. Our evidence suggests
that, although it is the case that legitimacy of parental authority effects what issues a child would disclose, in general,parental legitimacy does not have a relationship with adolescent disclosure. Thus, we suggest that the characteristics ofthe child may predict adolescent disclosure in an issue to issue basis but do not predict adolescent disclosure in the moregeneralized view to the extent that Smetana states.
Though past studies have shown that the level of parental
monitoring on an adolescent can predict various traits inan adolescent such as a youths’ psychological adjustment,
grades, test scores, the child’s and amount of delinquent
friends (Kerr & Stattin, 2000; Hawk, Hale, Raaijmakers, &Wim, 2008), our results do not support the generalization ofthis predictive power of adolescent disclosure. This is consistent with the evidence that shows disclosure of information by adolescents depends on a child’s internal ideas about
legitimate parent authority. However, these results disagreewith the results from Kerr and Stattin (2000). It should be
noted, however, that certain elements of this study were imperfect. The parental monitoring measure was slightly neg-

3

atively skewed and the disclosure measure was positively
skewed. Likewise, there was a difference in how the construct of disclosure was developed. Kerr and Stattin’s measure focused on the general case of “do you usually tell” and“do you hide a lot” whereas our measure was tailored toward arguments of disagreement by asking for each situation“when you disagree about this, what do you usually do”.
Thus, although the findings at first may seem to be opposed to Kerr and Stattin’s study, it happens to be insightful though the fact that the constructs for disclosure slightly
differ. In the more general case, disclosure was shown tobe correlated with parental monitoring while in the case oftalking about disagreement, parental monitoring did not correlate with disclosure. This would also explain why the otherhypotheses turned out to not be supported by the evidence.
The past studies that have been shown led us to believe that
there would be a stronger relationship between adolescentdisclosure and parental monitoring with age and a difference
between genders, but these were no indicators for our current
study due to the difference in the disclosure construct.
A possible model to explain our findings would be thatadolescents generally have a level of disclosure that is affected by the level of parental monitoring, but when it comesto arguments topics of disagreement, adolescents have a predefined response. Our data indicates that the response thatmost adolescents would have is to tell their parents what they
really think. Further research would have to come to illuminate the distinction between these measures of disclosure andjustify the extent to which adolescents disclose information
to their parents on topics of disagreement.

References
Buhrmester, D., & Prager, K. (1995). Patterns and functions of selfdisclosure during childhood and adolescence. In K. J. Rotenberg(Ed.), Disclosure processes in children and adolescents. (p. 1056).
Chassin, L., Pillow, D. R., Curran, P. J., Molina, B. S. G., & Barrera,
M. (1993). Relation of parental alcoholism to early adolescent
substance use: A test of three mediating mechanisms. Journalof Abnormal Psychology, 102(1), 3-19.
Dishion, T. J., & McMahon, R. J. (1998). Parental monitoring
and the prevention of child and adolescent problem behavior: Aconceptual and empirical formulation. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 1(1), 61-75.
Engels, R. C. M. E., Finkenauer, C., & van Kooten, D. C. (2006).
Lying behavior, family functioning and adjustment in early adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 35(6), 949-958.
Finkenauer, C., Frijns, T., Engels, R. C. M. E., & Kerkhof, P.
(2005). Perceiving concealment in relationships between parents and adolescents: Links with parental behavior. Personal
Relationships, 12(3), 387-406.
Fletcher, A. C., Steinberg, L., & Williams-Wheeler, M. (2004).
Parental influences on adolescent problem behavior: Revisiting
stattin and kerr. Child Development, 75(3), 781-796.
Fridrich, A. H., & Flannery, D. J. (1995). The effects of ethnicity
and acculturation on early adolescent delinquency. Journal ofChild and Family Studies, 4(1), 69-87.
Frijns, T., Finkenauer, C., Vermulst, A. A., & Engels, R. C. M. E.
(2005). Keeping secrets from parents: Longitudinal associations

4

CHRISTOPHER RACKAUCKASof secrecy in adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence,34(2), 137-148.
Hawk, S. T. (2010). Stay out of my business! predicting adolescents’ perceptions of parental privacy invasion and related
reactions (Vol. 70). Unpublished master’s thesis.
Hawk, S. T., Hale, W. W., Raaijmakers, Q. A. W., & Meeus, W.
(2008). Adolescents’ perceptions of privacy invasion in reaction to parental solicitation and control. The Journal of Early
Adolescence, 28(4), 583-608.
Keijsers, L., Branje, S. J. T., Frijns, T., Finkenauer, C., & Meeus,
W. (2010). Gender differences in keeping secrets from parents
in adolescence. Developmental Psychology, 46(1), 293-298.
Kerr, M., & Stattin, H. (2000). What parents know, how they know
it, and several forms of adolescent adjustment: Further support
for a reinterpretation of monitoring. Developmental Psychology,
36(3), 366-380.
Noller, P., & Callan, V. J. (1990). Adolescents’ perceptions of thenature of their communication with parents. Journal of Youthand Adolescence, 19(4), 349-362.

Peskin, J. (1992). Ruse and representations: On children’s ability toconceal information. Developmental Psychology, 28(1), 84-89.
Pomerantz, E. M., & Eaton, M. M. (2000). Developmental differences in children’s conceptions of parental control: "they loveme, but they make me feel incompetent.". Merrill-Palmer Quarterly: Journal of Developmental Psychology, 46(1), 140-167.
Schlenker, B. R., & Weigold, M. F. (1992). Interpersonal processes
involving impression regulation and management. Annual Review of Psychology, 43, 133-168.
Smetana, J. G. (1988). Adolescents’ and parents’ conceptions ofparental authority. Child Development, 59(2), 321-335.
Smetana, J. G. (2000). Middle-class african american adolescents’ and parents’ conceptions of parental authority and parenting practices: A longitudinal investigation. Child Development,
71(6), 1672-1686.
Smetana, J. G., Metzger, A., Gettman, D. C., & Campione-Barr,
N. (2006). Disclosure and secrecy in adolescent-parent relationships. Child Development, 77(1), 201-217.