Browsing by Subject "Adolescent adjustment"

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    Family interactions and shared fate: associations with adopted adolescent adjustment
    (2013-01) Anderson, Kayla N.
    In recent years, research has suggested that adoption status and family interactions are associated with adolescent externalizing behaviors. Conversations that acknowledge racial and ethnic differences between international adoptees and adoptive parents may also be important for adjustment. However, this association has never been empirically validated. This study tests associations between family interactions, acknowledging racial and ethnic difference, and adolescent adjustment using a sample of 222 adolescent Korean adoptees and their families. Families that acknowledge racial and ethnic difference had adolescents with the fewest externalizing behaviors. General family interactions were associated with acknowledging difference, where positive adolescent communication and dominant mothers tended to be associated with acknowledging difference. Contradictory of general population research, generally positive communication across family members was associated with an increase in adolescent externalizing behavior. Future directions suggest examining the effects of acknowledging racial and ethnic difference in adoptive families for non-adopted sibling and parent adjustment. Future research should also further examine the positive association between communication and adolescent externalizing behaviors in an adoptive sample. Keywords: adoption, family interactions, Shared Fate, adolescent adjustment
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    Understanding Adjustment of Adolescents Conceived Using Medically Assisted Reproduction within Family Contexts
    (2019-05) Chen, Muzi
    Adolescents conceived using medically assisted reproduction (MAR), as a continually growing population in the U.S., may be at risk for adjustment problems due to three challenging parenting tasks faced by their families. These challenges include a high likelihood of parental pregnancy loss, raising twins, and whether and when parents should tell children about being conceived using MAR. This dissertation investigated psychosocial adjustment of MAR-conceived adolescents in relation to these parenting challenges within family contexts in two studies. Study 1 tested a moderated mediation model that proposes a possible family process through which a pile-up stressors of pregnancy loss and twin status indirectly influence adolescent psychosocial adjustment in a sample of 278 adolescents from 193 families. Results suggest pregnancy loss has long-lasting, differential effects on parental emotions at middle childhood when parenting twins versus singletons, which relates to subsequent adolescent adjustment. Study 2 examined adolescent psychosocial adjustment following the MAR information sharing within family communication environments using multiple group analysis in a sample of 163 adolescents from 115 families. Results indicate a complex picture that family communication environments interplay with the timing of MAR information sharing to influence adolescent psychosocial adjustment. These studies suggest a critical role of family contextual factors in shaping MAR-conceived adolescents’ psychosocial adjustment.