School of Psychological Sciences, The University of Manchester, UK.
Br J Clin Psychol. 2013 Sep;52(3):269-84. doi: 10.1111/bjc.12013. Epub 2012 Dec 5.
Parental appraisals of an adolescent may have an effect upon the adolescent's well-being and likelihood of emotional problems. However, the impact of these parental appraisals is likely to be partly determined by the young person's self-appraisal. It was predicted that a discrepancy in self- and parent appraisals of positive, prosocial qualities would be associated with an increased risk of emotional problems.
The study employed a cross-sectional design within a large sample of adolescent and caregiver dyads (N = 3,976, aged 11-17 years), drawn from the 'Mental health of children and young people in Great Britain, 2004' survey.
Two separate measures of prosociality were used to ensure that effects were not specific to one measure. The analysis explored the discrepancy in parent and self-ratings on these measures via interactions within a logistic regression framework. Potential confounds, including gender, parental mental health, conduct and hyperkinetic problems were controlled for in the analysis.
The logistic regression analyses demonstrated significant interactions between self- and parent ratings of prosocial qualities in predicting the odds of emotional disorder (i.e., depression and anxiety). This effect occurred across both measures of prosocial qualities whilst controlling for confounds. The pattern of the interactions suggested that low parental appraisals had a more detrimental effect on well-being when self-appraisals were highly positive.
The results suggest that moderately high self-appraised positive traits may carry a cost of leaving young people more vulnerable to discrepant, negative parental appraisals. This has important implications for the meaning attributed to self-appraised positive traits in clinical contexts.
Clinicians should be aware that the association between parental perceptions of a child's prosociality and emotional disorder may be influenced by the adolescents' self-perceptions. Clinicians should therefore endeavour to assess both parental and adolescent appraisals. Discrepancies may be clinically meaningful, in terms of the risk of emotional problems, rather than simply being a nuisance. This study is cross-sectional, so although discrepancies may be linked to risk of emotional problems, the direction of this effect requires elucidation. The current study only focusses on the parent-adolescent dynamic and so may not extend to discrepancy effects in other areas of positive functioning or in other relational contexts.
父母对青少年的评价可能会影响青少年的幸福感和情绪问题的可能性。然而，这些父母评价的影响可能部分取决于年轻人的自我评价。研究预测，自我和父母对积极、亲社会品质的评价差异与情绪问题的风险增加有关。
本研究采用了一种横断设计，在一个大型青少年和照顾者对（N=3976，年龄在 11-17 岁之间）的样本中，从“2004 年英国儿童和青少年的心理健康”调查中抽取。
使用两种独立的亲社会行为测量方法来确保效果不是特定于一种测量方法。通过在逻辑回归框架内的交互作用，分析了这些测量方法中父母和自我评分的差异。在分析中，包括性别、父母的心理健康、行为和多动问题在内的潜在混杂因素得到了控制。
逻辑回归分析表明，自我和父母对亲社会品质的评价之间的显著交互作用，预测了情绪障碍（即抑郁和焦虑）的几率。在控制混杂因素的情况下，这一效应发生在两种亲社会品质的测量中。相互作用的模式表明，当自我评价非常积极时，低父母评价对幸福感的影响更为不利。
结果表明，自我评价中等偏高的积极特质可能会使年轻人更容易受到不一致的负面父母评价的影响，从而变得更加脆弱。这对临床环境中赋予自我评估的积极特质的意义具有重要意义。
临床医生应该意识到，父母对孩子亲社会行为的看法与情绪障碍之间的关联可能受到青少年自我认知的影响。因此，临床医生应该努力评估父母和青少年的评价。差异可能在情绪问题的风险方面具有临床意义，而不仅仅是一种麻烦。本研究是横断面的，因此，尽管差异可能与情绪问题的风险有关，但这种效应的方向需要阐明。本研究仅关注父母-青少年的动态，因此可能不适用于积极功能的其他领域或其他关系背景中的差异效应。
