The Affective Nature of Mother--Adolescent Communication Concerning Sexuality and Conflict

This 2-year longitudinal study examined the affective nature of communication between mothers and adolescents from early to mid-adolescence. Eleven- to 16-year-old adolescents and their mothers were videotaped while engaging in conversations about everyday topics, dating and sexuality, and conflicts. Nonverbal displays of affiliation, embarrassment, and contempt were found to be fairly stable across conversations, across members of the same dyad, and across time for the mothers. However, there were some effects of conversational topic in that adolescents displayed less affiliation in the conflict conversation than in the other conversations during the 1st session. In addition, boys displayed more contempt when talking about dating and sexuality than about conflicts. Over the 2-year period, the level of affiliation decreased for adolescents, and maternal conversational dominance increased. In all conversations and at both time periods, adolescents displayed more embarrassment and contempt and less affiliat...