Rosenthal D, Senserrick T, Feldman S
Faculty of Health Sciences, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia 3086.
Arch Sex Behav. 2001 Oct;30(5):463-82. doi: 10.1023/a:1010235116609.
Teenagers in Grades 8 and 10 and their parents completed a questionnaire examining the frequency of parental communications about sexuality and the communicative style when discussing sexuality and in general. Respondents also assessed parents' competence in communicating about sexual matters. For each set of respondents (teens reporting about mother, teens reporting about father, mothers' self-reports, fathers' self-reports), a cluster analysis yielded four clusters that were similar for each set. Relative to other parents, there was a group of parents that could be labelled as competent communicators and a group that could be labelled as problematic communicators about sexuality, with strong associations between cluster membership and score on the global measure of communicative competence. There were two intermediate categories that reflected more or less competence although the precise nature of these clusters differed as a function of informant group. Overall, fathers were rated as poorer communicators about sexuality than were mothers, at least by their teenage children. Consistent with other studies, mothers were more likely to be perceived as effective communicators by daughters and older teens. It appears that, independent of their level of competence, parents adjust their communication strategies according to the age and sex of their child, at least in the eyes of that child. Effective and problematic communicators among mothers were regarded as such by both sets of informants. This was not the case for fathers. We conclude that it is possible to classify parents usefully on the basis of perceived competence as communicators about sexuality.
八年级和十年级的青少年及其父母完成了一份调查问卷，该问卷调查了父母关于性取向沟通的频率以及在讨论性取向和一般话题时的沟通方式。受访者还评估了父母在谈论性问题时的能力。对于每组受访者（青少年报告母亲、青少年报告父亲、母亲的自我报告、父亲的自我报告），聚类分析得出了四组相似的聚类。与其他父母相比，有一组父母可被视为有能力的沟通者，另一组在性取向沟通方面可被视为有问题的沟通者，聚类成员与沟通能力总体衡量得分之间存在强烈关联。有两个中间类别，反映了或多或少的沟通能力，尽管这些聚类的确切性质因信息提供者群体而异。总体而言，至少在他们十几岁的孩子看来，父亲在性取向沟通方面的评分比母亲低。与其他研究一致，母亲更有可能被女儿和年龄较大的青少年视为有效的沟通者。看来，无论沟通能力如何，父母至少在孩子眼中会根据孩子的年龄和性别调整沟通策略。母亲中有效和有问题的沟通者在两组信息提供者眼中都是如此。父亲的情况并非如此。我们得出结论，根据在性取向沟通方面的感知能力对父母进行有效分类是可能的。
