Parent-adolescent discrepancies in perceptions of parental warmth: Cross-cultural differences and longitudinal associations with internalizing symptoms.
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2025-12
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Research suggests that adolescents often perceive parental behaviors-such as expressions of warmth and affection-differently than their parents do. These parent-adolescent discrepancies offer meaningful insight into family functioning during adolescence and adolescent mental health, though existing findings remain mixed. Grounded in interpersonal acceptance-rejection theory (IPARTheory), this study investigates longitudinal, bidirectional associations between parent-adolescent discrepancies in perceived parental warmth and adolescent internalizing symptoms. The sample included 1219 parent-adolescent dyads (both mothers and fathers) from 12 cultural groups across 9countries, followed across three time points spanning 5 years, with children's mean age being 10.72 years (SD = 0.67) at Wave 1, 13.19 years (SD = 0.90) at Wave 2, and 15.60 years (SD = 0.94) at Wave 3. The results of latent congruence models showed that mothers reported higher warmth than adolescents, whereas no significant discrepancies emerged between fathers and adolescents. The cross-sectional analyses indicated that a higher parent-adolescent discrepancy in parental warmth perceptions was linked to increased internalizing symptoms in adolescents and lower overall warmth perceived by parents and adolescents in the dyad. However, over the long term, marginal effects were observed only between greater internalizing symptoms in adolescents and lower overall warmth experienced, and vice versa. Additionally, some cross-cultural differences in the discrepancies between parents and adolescents were identified. These findings highlight the importance of congruence between parents' and adolescents' perceptions of parental warmth, which may play a critical role in reducing adolescent internalizing symptoms, at least in the short term. Future research should deepen these dynamics across different cultures and developmental stages to improve intervention strategies and strengthen family-based mental health support.
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Esposito, Concetta, Maria Concetta Miranda, W Andrew Rothenberg, Ann T Skinner, Jennifer E Lansford, Sevtap Gurdal, Daranee Junla, Paul Oburu, et al. (2025). Parent-adolescent discrepancies in perceptions of parental warmth: Cross-cultural differences and longitudinal associations with internalizing symptoms. Journal of research on adolescence : the official journal of the Society for Research on Adolescence, 35(4). p. e70093. 10.1111/jora.70093 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/33692.
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W. Andrew Rothenberg
Drew Rothenberg joined the Center for Child and Family Policy as a postdoctoral associate in September 2018 and now works as a Research Scientist at the Center. His research is focused on the development of adaptive and maladaptive parenting practices and family processes across ontogeny, culture and generations. Utilizing a developmental psychopathology framework, he examines how parenting practices, family dynamics, and evidence-based mental health interventions affect normal and abnormal child development. His program of research has three aims. First, he explores how maladaptive family processes can be passed from one generation to the next. Second, he identifies strategies to prevent the intergenerational transmission of these processes in different culture contexts. Third, he implements these preventative interventions in medically underserved communities that need them the most.
He currently works on the Childhood Risk Factors and Young Adult Competence project, funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, as part of the Parenting Across Cultures research team.
Ann Skinner
Ann Skinner joined the Center in 2001 and is a Research Scientist with Parenting Across Cultures (PAC) and C-StARR. She is also the Principal Investigator for a study examining the effects of the war on young people and their families in Ukraine.
Her research focuses on the ways in which stressful community, familial, and interpersonal events impact parent-child relationships and the development of aggression and internalizing behaviors in youth. She has extensive experience in data management of multisite projects and in supervising teams for school- and community-based interventions and data collection.
Skinner is a former supervisor in the Junior Researcher Programme, where she led a group of junior international scholars exploring the impact of COVID-19 on adolescent and young adult development. She is currently a 2022-23 fellow with the ICDSS COVID-19 Global Scholars Program.
Prior to her work with Parenting Across Cultures, Skinner was a senior school specialist and research analyst on the GREAT Schools and Families middle school violence prevention project at the Center, as well as Project CLASS.
Skinner has a Ph.D in developmental psychology from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, a master's degree in education, and B.A. in psychology, both from the College of William and Mary, with a focus on teaching students with emotional and learning disabilities. Before joining the Center, she worked as a special education teacher, trainer, and supervisor in the North Carolina public schools and at residential facilities for at-risk youth in Rhode Island and North Carolina.
Jennifer Lansford
Jennifer Lansford is the director of the Center for Child and Family Policy and S. Malcolm Gillis Distinguished Research Professor of Public Policy in the Sanford School of Public Policy.
Dr. Lansford's research focuses on the development of aggression and other behavior problems in youth, with an emphasis on how family and peer contexts contribute to or protect against these outcomes. She examines how experiences with parents (e.g., physical abuse, discipline, divorce) and peers (e.g., rejection, friendships) affect the development of children's behavior problems, how influence operates in adolescent peer groups, and how cultural contexts moderate links between parenting and children's adjustment.
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