Association between mother and adolescent reports for assessing relations between parent-adolescent communication and adolescent adjustment

An important research finding is that parent-adolescent communication is related to adolescent adjustment. However when using self-report measures with multiple reporters, adolescent and parent reports do not correlate highly, and within-rater reports correlate higher than cross-rater reports. This limits the utility of traditional methods of aggregation across raters. The present study used canonical correlation to examine if and how mother and adolescent reports for communication and problem behaviors are related. With reports from 161 adolescents and their mothers, the results indicated that the relationship between mother and adolescent reports differed by problem behavior area. Within-rater reports dominated the dimensions for communication related to aggressive behaviors. For anxious/depressed behaviors, both mother and adolescent reports contributed to the dimensions, with I dimension reflecting opposite perceptions of communication and adjustment by mothers and adolescents.