title: Parent-Adolescent Discrepancies Regarding Adolescents' Peer-Related Loneliness: Associations with Adolescent Adjustment.
abstract: Because loneliness is a subjective experience, it is often examined using self-reports. Yet, researchers have started to use other-reports to examine loneliness. As previous research suggests that discrepancies between self- and other views might have important implications for adolescents' mental health, the current study examines discrepancies in multi-informant reports on adolescents' loneliness in relation with prosocial behavior, aggression, and adolescents' parent-related loneliness. The sample consisted of 374 mother-adolescent dyads and 318 father-adolescent dyads (41.80% male, Mage= 15.67 years, SD = 1.25). Results indicated that informants used different reference points to assess adolescents' peer-related loneliness, but were otherwise comparable. Moreover, informant discrepancies were associated with greater adolescents' reported parent-related loneliness. The current study did not provide evidence that discrepancies were related to prosocial or aggressive behavior. The current study adds to the notion that other-reports on loneliness show substantial convergence with self-reports. In addition, this study indicates that the discrepancy between other- and self-reports on loneliness holds valuable information for adolescent socio-emotional adjustment.
authors.affiliation: Department of School Psychology and Child and Adolescent Development, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium. Annette.Spithoven@kuleuven.be.
authors.forename: Annette W M
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Spithoven
authors.affiliation: Department of School Psychology and Child and Adolescent Development, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.|Research Foundation Flanders (FWO), Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: Janne
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Vanhalst
authors.affiliation: Interuniversity Centre for Social Science Theory and Methodology, Department of Sociology, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.
authors.forename: Gerine
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lodder
authors.affiliation: Department of School Psychology and Child and Adolescent Development, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Patricia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Bijttebier
authors.affiliation: Department of School Psychology and Child and Adolescent Development, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
authors.forename: Luc
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Goossens
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology; D000066498:Emotional Adjustment; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008132:Loneliness / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology; D015588:Observer Variation; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D000297:Psychology, Adolescent; D057566:Self Report; D012917:Social Adjustment
keywords: Adolescents; Aggressive behavior; Discrepancies; Loneliness; Parent-reports; Prosocial behavior