Cognitive changes during the adolescent years are frequently invoked as a factor in the transformation of parent-child relationships. Theoretical formulations and empirical studies of conceptual changes and linkages between these and changes in parent-child relationships were reviewed in three categories: those focussing on the role of conceptions of parents; those focussing on self-conceptions and their implications; and those focussing on concepts of parent-child relationships. Most research has addressed solely conceptual change. Only three studies have examined both conceptual change and interpersonal relationships. Thus, the common assumption of a linkage between conceptual and relationship change as yet has no empirical basis. Future research in the area will require: (a) measures and research designs that are sensitive to cognitive changes in the domain of parent-child relationships; and (b) a more specific delineation of the conditions under which linkages should be expected between conceptual changes and alterations in various aspects of parent-adolescent relationships.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Adams, G. R.
& Jones, R. M. (1981). Imaginary audience behavior: A validation study. Journal of Early Adolescence, 1, 1-10.
2.
Adams, G. R.
& Jones, R. M. (1982). Adolescent egocentrism: Explorations into possible contributions of parent-child relations. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 11, 25-31.
3.
Adelson, J.
& Doehrman, M. J. (1980). The psychodynamic approach to adolescence. In J. Adelson (Ed.), Handbook of adolescent psychology (pp. 99-116). New York: Wiley.
4.
Alessandri, S. M.
& Wozniak, R. H. (1987). The child's awareness of parental beliefs concerning the child: A developmental study. Child Development, 58, 316-323.
5.
Barenboim, C.
(1977). Developmental changes in the interpersonal cognitive system from middle childhood to adolescence. Child Development, 48, 1467-1474.
6.
Barenboim, C.
(1981). The development of person perception in childhood and adolescence: From behavioral comparisons to psychological constructs to psychological comparisons. Child Development, 52, 129-144.
7.
Blasi, A.
, & Hoeffel, E. C. (1974). Adolescence and formal operations. Human Development, 17344-363.
8.
Blos, P.
(1967). The second individuation process of adolescence. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 22, 162-186.
9.
Blos, P.
(1979). The adolescent passage. New York: International Universities Press.
10.
Carlton-Ford, S.
& Collins, W. A. (1988, August). Family conflict: Dimensions, differential reporting, and developmental differences Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, Chicago, IL.
11.
Collins, W. A.
(1988). Research on the transition to adolescence: Continuity in the study of developmental processes. In M. Gunnar & W. A. Collins (Eds.), Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology (Vol. 21; pp. 1-15). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
12.
Collins, W. A. & Russell, G. (1988). Mother-child and father-child relationships in middle childhood and adolescence. Unpublished manuscript, University of Minnesota.
13.
Crockett, W H.
(1965). Cognitive complexity and impression formation. Research in Experimental Personality, 2, 47-90.
14.
Damon, W.
(1977). The social world of the childSan Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
15.
Damon, W.
(1983). Social and personality development. New York: Norton.
16.
Damon, W.
& Hart, D. (1982). The development of self-understanding from infancy through adolescence. Child Development, 53, 841-864.
17.
Damon, W.
& Hart, D. (1986). Stability and change in children's self-understanding. Social Cognition, 4, 102-118.
18.
Elkind, D.
(1967a). Egocentrism in adolescence. Child Development, 38, 1025-1034.
19.
Elkind, D.
(1967b). Cognitive structure and adolescent experience. Adolescence, 2, 427-434.
20.
Elkind, D.
& Bowen, R. (1979). Imaginary audience behavior in children and adolescents. Developmental Psychology, 15, 38-44.
21.
Fiedler, F. E.
& Hoffman, E. L. (1962). Age, sex and religious background as determinants of interpersonal perception among Dutch children: A cross cultural validation. Acta Psychologica, 20, 185-195.
22.
Fischer, K. W.
& Bullock, D. (1984). Cognitive development in middle childhood: Conclusions and new directions. In W. A. Collins (Ed.), The elementary school years: Understanding development during middle childhood (pp. 70-146). Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
23.
Flavell, J. H.
(1982a). On cognitive development. Child Development, 53, 1-10.
24.
Flavell, J. H.
(1982b). Structures, stages, and sequences in cognitive development. In W. A. Collins (Ed.), Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology (Vol. 15; pp. 1-28). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
25.
Freud, A.
(1958). Adolescence. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 13, 255-278.
26.
Goodnow, J.
(1988). Parent's ideas, actions, and feelings: Models and methods from developmental and social psychology. Child Development, 59, 286-320.
27.
Goosens, L.
(1984). Imaginary audience behavior as a function of age, sex, and formal operational thinking. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 7, 77-93.
28.
Gray, W. M.
& Hudson, L. M. (1984). Formal operations and imaginary audience. Developmental Psychology, 20, 619-627.
29.
Grotevant, H.
& Cooper, C. (1984). Patterns of interaction in family relationships and the development of identity exploration in adolescence. Child Development, 56, 415-428.
30.
Hart, D.
& Damon, W. (1986). Developmental trends in self-understanding. Social Cognition, 4, 388-407.
31.
Harter, S.
(1986). Cognitive-developmental processes in the integration of concepts about emotions and self. Social Cognition, 4, 119-151.
32.
Hauser, S.
, Powers, S., Noam, G., Jacobson, A., Weiss, B., & Follansbee, D. (1984). Family contexts of adolescent ego development. Child Development, 55, 195-213.
33.
Heider, F.
(1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York: Wiley.
34.
Hill, J. P.
(1980). The family. In M. Johnson (Ed.), Toward adolescence: The middle school years. The seventy-ninth yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education (pp. 32-55). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
35.
Hill, J. P.
(1985). Family relations in adolescence: Myths, realities, and new directions. Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs, 111, 233-248.
36.
Hill, J. P.
(1987). Research on adolescents and their families: Past and prospect. In C. Irwin, Jr. (Ed.), New directions for child development: Adolescent social behavior and health (pp. 13-31). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
37.
Hill, J. P.
(1988). Adaptation to menarche: Familial control and conflict. In M. Gunnar & W. A. Collins (Eds.), Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology (Vol. 21; pp. 43-77). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
38.
Hinde, R. A.
(1979). Towards understanding relationshipsLondon: Academic Press.
39.
Hinde, R. A.
& Stevenson-Hinde, J. (1987). Interpersonal relationships and child development. Developmental Review, 71-21.
40.
Hunter, F T.
& Youniss, J. (1982). Changes in functions of three relations during adolescence. Developmental Psychology, 18, 806-811.
41.
Inhelder, B.
& Piaget, J. (1958). The growth of logical thinking from childhood to adolescence. New York: Basic Books.
42.
Johnson, B. M. & Collins, W. A. (1987). Developmental differences in perceptions and expectations: Implications for family relationships and psychosocial functioning in the second decade of life. Unpublished manuscript, University of Minnesota.
43.
Kelley, H.
, Berscheid, E., Christensen, A., Harvey, J., Huston, T., Levinger, G., McClintock, E., Peplau, L., & Peterson, D. (1983). Close relationshipsNew York: Freeman.
44.
Kohlberg, L.
& Gilligan, C. (1971). The adolescent as philosopher: The discovery of the self in a post-conventional world. Daedalus, 100, 1051-1086.
45.
Kohn, A. R.
& Fiedler, F. E. (1961). Age and sex differences in the perception of persons. Sociometry, 24, 157-164.
46.
Lapsley, D. K.
& Murphy, M. N. (1985). Another look at the theoretical assumptions of adolescent egocentrism. Developmental Review, 5, 201-217.
47.
Laursen, B. & Collins, W. A. (1986). Cognitive differentiation, complexity, and adolescents' concepts of same-age and parent-age targets. Unpublished manuscript, University of Minnesota.
48.
Linville, P.
(1982). The complexity-extremity effect and age based stereotyping. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42, 193-211.
49.
Maccoby, E.
(1984). Middle childhood in the context of the family. In W. A. Collins (Ed.), Development during middle childhood: The years from six to twelve (pp. 184-239). Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
50.
Miller, S.
(1988). Parents' beliefs about children's cognitive development. Child Development, 59, 259-285.
51.
Montemayor, R.
(1983). Parents and adolescents in conflict: All families some of the time and some families most of the time. Journal of Early Adolescence, 3, 83-103.
52.
Montemayor, R.
& Hanson, E. (1985). A naturalistic view of conflict between adolescents and their siblings. Journal of Early Adolescence, 5, 23-30.
53.
Paikoff, R. L.
, Collins, W. A., & Laursen, B. (1988). Perceptions and evaluations of parental influence techniques in the transition to adolescence. Journal of Early Adolescence, 8, 37-52.
54.
Peterson, A.
(1988). Adolescent development. Annual Review of Psychology, 39, 583-609.
55.
Piaget, J.
(1954). The construction of reality in the childNew York: Basic Books.
56.
Piaget, J.
(1965). The moral judgment of the childNew York: Free Press.
57.
Piaget, J.
(1972). Intellectual evolution from adolescence to adulthood. Human Development, 15, 1-12.
58.
Selman, R.
(1976). Toward a structural analysis of developing interpersonal relations concepts: Research with normal and disturbed preadolescent boys. In A. Pick (Ed.), Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology (Vol. 10; pp. 156-200). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
59.
Selman, R.
(1980). The growth of interpersonal understanding. New York: Academic Press.
60.
Selman, R. L.
, Beardslee, W., Shultz, L. H., Krupa, B., & Poderefsky, D. (1986). Assessing adolescent interpersonal negotiation strategies: Toward the integration of structural and functional models. Developmental Psychology, 22, 450-459.
61.
Siegal, M.
(1987). Are sons and daughters treated more differently by fathers than by mothers?Developmental Review, 7183-209.
62.
Smetana, J. G.
(1988a). Concepts of self and social convention: Adolescents' and parents' reasoning about hypothetical and actual family conflicts. In M. Gunnar & W. A. Collins (Eds.), Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology (Vol. 21; pp. 79-122). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
63.
Smetana, J. G.
(1988b). Adolescents' and parents' conceptions of parental authority. Child Development, 59, 321-335.
64.
Steinberg, L. D.
(1981). Transformations in family relations at puberty. Developmental Psychology, 17, 833-840.
65.
Steinberg, L. D.
(1987). Impact of puberty on family relations: Effects of pubertal status and pubertal timing. Developmental Psychology, 23, 451-460.
66.
Steinberg, L. D.
& Hill, J. P. (1978). Patterns of family interaction as a function of age, the onset of puberty, and formal thinking. Developmental Psychology, 14, 683-684.
67.
Steinberg, L. D.
& Silverberg, S. B. (1986). The vicissitudes of autonomy in early adolescence. Child Development, 57, 841-851.
68.
Sullivan, H. S.
(1953). The interpersonal theory of psychiatry. New York: Norton.
69.
Vuchinich, S.
(1987). Starting and stopping spontaneous family conflicts. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 49, 591-601.
70.
Werner, H.
(1957). The concept of development from a comparative and organismic view. In D. Harris (Ed.), The concept of development (pp. 125-148). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
71.
White, K. M.
, Speisman, J. C., & Costos, D. (1983). Young adults and their parents: Individuation to mutuality. In H. Grotevant & C. Cooper (Eds.), New Directions for child development: Adolescent development in the family (pp. 61-76). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
72.
Youniss, J.
(1980). Parents and peers in social development. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
73.
Youniss, J.
& Smollar, J. (1985). Adolescent relations with mothers, fathers, and friends. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
