NCJ Number
229539
Journal
Journal of Youth and Adolescence Volume: 39 Issue: 1 Dated: January 2010 Pages: 73-83
Date Published
January 2010
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This study examined the differential effect of parents' persuasion (e.g., encouragement, giving information) and pressure tactics (e.g., guilt induction, ridicule) and the moderating influence of parental warmth on older adolescents' emotional and behavioral responses.
Abstract
Previous findings have shown both beneficial and adverse effects of parents' attempts to influence adolescents' eating habits. An ethnically diverse sample of 336 older adolescents (M age = 18.6; SD = 1.1; 58.0 percent female) were surveyed. Adolescents who reported higher levels of pressure tactics by parents reported more negative affect and behavioral resistance. Perceived parental warmth moderated the influence of persuasion tactics, but not pressure tactics. For adolescents with low parental warmth, high levels of persuasion were associated with more negative emotional and behavioral responses; persuasion had the opposite associations for adolescents with high parental warmth. These results suggest that parental warmth plays an important role in how older adolescents respond to parents' persuasion tactics. However, when parents use more forceful pressure tactics to influence eating habits, adolescents react negatively regardless of the overall quality of the parent-adolescent relationship. Tables, figures, appendixes A-B, and references (Published Abstract)