Shading the truth: the patterning of adolescents' decisions to avoid issues, disclose, or lie to parents.
Latent Class Analysis (LCA) was used to examine the patterning of adolescents' strategy choice when discussing issues with parents in a sample of 1678 Chilean 11-19 year olds (mean age=14.9). Adolescents reported whether they fully disclosed, partially disclosed, avoided the issue, or lied for six core areas that bridged personal autonomy and safety concerns. Five patterns were identified: two in which adolescents were likely to either share information about all issues or lie about them and three in which adolescents used a combination of strategies that included sharing some information while concealing other. Membership in the full disclosure class was highest among middle class youth and those who reported the highest obedience, legitimacy beliefs, parental agreement, maternal warmth and knowledge, and the fewest problem behaviors. Interestingly, adolescents in the Lie class reported both the highest level of parental monitoring and low maternal knowledge.
Cumsille
Patricio
P
Escuela de Psicología, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Vicuña Mackenna 4860, Santiago, Chile. pcumsill@uc.cl
Darling
Nancy
N
Martínez
M Loreto
ML
D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D002677:Chile; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D008192:Deception; D003657:Decision Making; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D012650:Self Disclosure; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014342:Truth Disclosure; D055815:Young Adult