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Negotiation of conflict, communication patterns, and ego development in the family of adolescent daughters

University of Oslo, Norway

Inger Ulrikke Møller

Psychiatric Clinic, Kristiansand, Norway

Late-adolescent females (N = 39) and their parents were studied, relating the quality of conflict negotiation in the family to their ego development and their dyadic communication patterns. Family communication was evaluated by the Constraining and Enabling Coding System (CECS; Hauser et al., 1985) from discussions in a revealed difference task. Each statement given by a person directed at another was coded and scores were aggregated. Quality of negotiation for the family as a unit was assessed from the discussions in molar codings guided by Stierlin’s (1974) model of individuated relationships and developed for this study. Ego development was measured by Loevinger’s Washington University Sentence Completion Test. Analyses showed that the adolescents’, but not the parents’, ego level predicted family negotiation scores. The results also suggested that the quality of family negotiations was enhanced by different patterns of dyadic communication between adolescent daughters and their parents. Negotiating skill was high when there was cognitive complementarity between parents and daughters such that the father was cognitively enabling toward the daughter (and she was not) and the daughter was cognitively enabling toward the mother (whereas this was not predictive of the mother), and there was affective symmetry between parents and daughters (both facilitative). Daughters contributed to negotiation skill in the family by being more attentive to the mother than to the father. Regression analyses indicated that affective factors were more predictive of the negotiation climate in the family than cognitive factors.

International Journal of Behavioral Development, Vol. 24, No. 1, 59-67 (2000)
DOI: 10.1080/016502500383476


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