Parental criticism and young adolescent self-disclosure: A cross-cultural study

Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Vol. 17, No. 1, 1988

Parental Criticism and Young Adolescent Self-Disclosure: A Cross-Cultural Study D o r e e n A . Rosenthal, t Anastasia Efklides, 2 and Andreas Demetrlou ~ Received April 22, 1987; accepted August 27, 1987

Criticism by mothers and fathers, as well as young adolescents" perceptions of parental criticism and their self-disclosure to parents, was assessed for a sample of 80 families. Of these, 40 were resident in Australia (20 AngloAustralian and 20 Greek-Australian) and 40 were resident in Greece (20 professional and 20 working-class). There were no differences between the groups in amount o f criticism by parents nor in adolescents'perceptions o f criticism. Greek- and A nglo-A ustralian adolescents disclosed significantly less to parents than did the Greek adolescents. For Greek-Australian adolescents there was an inverse relationship between self-disclosure on a number o f topics and perceived levels of parental criticism. The results were interpreted in terms o f cultural differences between the groups and adaptive behaviors o f the Greek-Australian adolescents.

INTRODUCTION

Differences between parents and adolescents in attitudes and values have long been a focus of interest, and much has been made of the existence of a "generation gap" leading to high levels of intergenerational conflict within families. That this gap is more imagined than real and that levels of conflict are somewhat lower than expected are the conclusions that follow from most research (e.g., Hamid and Wyllie, 1980; Rosenthal, 1984; Thomas, 1974; This research was supported by a University of Melbourne grant to the first author. ~Senior Lecturer, University of Melbourne. Received Ph.D. from University of Melbourne. Research interests include the social context of adolescent development. 2Associate Professor, Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki. Received Ph.D. from Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki. Research interest is in cognitive development through the life span. 3Associate Professor, Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki. Received Ph.D. from Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki. Research interest is in cognitive development through the life span.

25 0047-2891/88/0200-0025506.00/09 1988PlenumPublishingCorporation

26

Rosenthal, Efklides, and Demetriou

Tolor, 1976). In the main, explorations of conflict have centered on differences in beliefs and attitudes, and on disagreements about particular activities such as doing homework or choice of friends. Another way of assessing the amount of harmony or disharmony within a family is to examine the amount of criticism adolescents receive from parents. If we consider that parental criticism results when children's behaviors or beliefs are at variance with parents' values, then parental criticism may be a good index of parent-adolescent conflict. If criticism is seen as reflecting a lack of confidence in the adolescent, a typical reaction may be one of anger or resentment. Moreover, Harris and Howard (1984) note that parents are most likely to criticize behaviors that result from the adolescent's bids for independence, autonomy, and a sense of his/her unique identity, representing yet another potential source of conflict. Harris and Howard also found that adolescents who perceived their parents as highly critical had lower self-esteem and felt less accepted by them. This latter finding suggests that there may be a link between levels of criticism and the willingness of adolescents to disclose their feelings and problems to parents. Self-disclosure by adolescents appears affected by a number of factors such as age, sex, target person, and subject of disclosure. In a comprehensive review, Norrell (1984) concluded, e.g., that there were sex differences both in amount and target of disclosure-with more disclosure from and to females than males, more disclosure about school, interests, and attitudes than money, personality, and body, while age trends were unclear. Although most studies show more disclosure to mother than father, Norrell concluded that the choice of target may be affected by family dynamics, e.g., by perceptions of worth. Adolescents who feel that either or both of their parents have little confidence in them and are highly critical may turn to other targets such as peers for communication of important information about themselves. In the present study, we have taken these two relatively underresearched areas in the study of adolescence and attempted to relate them in the context of parent-adolescent conflict and, in particular, conflict in families of different cultural origins. While levels of intergenerational conflict may be relatively low, the special case of immigrant families is an interesting one. It has been argued that in these families conflict is heightened since, typically, these adolescents are subjected to the conflicting demands of two cultures: the old, most forcefully represented by parents and the ethnic minority community to which they belong, and the new, characterized by peers, school, and the receiving society. While most studies reveal somewhat higher levels of disagreement between parents and adolescents in these immigrant families (e.g., Child, 1943; Connell et al., 1975; Rosenthal, 1984) it is not clear that the culture-conflict model holds.

Parental Criticism and Adolescent Self-Disclosure

27

The present study sought to shed further light on the nature of family interactions in different cultures by comparing Anglo-Australian with Greek families. Ethnographic material on Greeks suggests that the parent-child relationship has traditionally been the central one in Greek families (Doumanis, 1983; Triandis and Vassiliou, 1972; G. and V. Vassiliou, 1970). The closeness of this relationship and the importance of family cohesiveness might lead to predictions of greater openness between Greek adolescents and their parents relative to Anglo-Australians, for whom individuality and independence are important values(Rosenthal and Bornholt, in press). Similar effects might be predicted for parental criticism since congruence between parents' and adolescents' values may be greater for these traditional, close-knit families than for Anglo-Australian families, where individualistic values are encouraged. These predictions may not hold for all Greeks, especially for Greek immigrant families. For example, Potamianou (1978) found that professional Greek parents allowed greater individuality and autonomy in their children than did her working-class parents who were more traditional. Doumanis (1983) also described differences between the traditional values and childcentered family life of rural Greeks and the fragmentation and uncertainty of parental roles in urban families. Thus, there may be differences between professional and working-class Greeks that result in the former being more like Anglo-Australians. Additionally, if second-generation immigrant adolescents do hold different values from those of their parents, then they may be reluctant to disclose their beliefs and problems to parents who might be seen as lacking in understanding. This may be especially the case in areas where disagreements are frequent such as boy-girls relationships (Rosenthal, 1984). Similarly, if parental criticism arises because adolescents' behavior deviates from parental values, then criticism would be greater in such families. In the present study, we sought to answer the following questions: Are there cultural differences in the extent to which adolescents see themselves as criticized by parents and in the amount of self-disclosure to parents? Do adolescents from different cultures differ in the target of their disclosures? Is the amount of self-disclosure related to the degree to which adolescents perceive parents as critical? Finally, it seems important to look at criticism from the parents' point of view. Do parents from different cultures differ in how much they criticize their adolescents? How accurate are adolescents' perceptions of their parents' criticisms? It could be hypothesized that the closeness of Greek families might lead to greater correspondence between parents' and adolescents' judgments than in anglo-Australian families, while children of Greek immigrants, because of conflict between parental and their own value systems, might be more resentful and may exaggerate perceptions of criticisms.

Rosenthal, Efklides, and Demetriou

28 METHOD Subjects

The sample (iV = 240) consisted of 40 working-class Australian families (mother, father, and an adolescent, Xage = 12:9 years) resident in Melbourne, a city with a large Greek-born population, and 40 families resident in Greece (adolescents' ,~ age = 12.5 years) who were participating in a larger study of child-rearing practices, cultural values, and intergenerational interaction. Of the Australian sample, 20 families were Anglo-Australian (AA) (both parents born in Australia of Anglo-Celtic descent) and 20 were GreekAustralian (both parents born in Greece). All the adolescents were born in Australia. The Greek sample was drawn from Thessaloniki, the second-largest city in Greece, and surrounding villages. Twenty families were of high socioeconomic status, all of whom were living in Thessaloniki, and the remainder were of low socioeconomic status, of whom 11 lived in Thessaloniki and 9 in neighboring rural areas. There was a good match between the Greek-Australian (GA) and working-class Greek (LOG) samples on birthplace (rural), level of education, and fathers' occupations. Gender distribution of the adolescent sample was balanced across the subgroups with the exception of a bias in favor of, girls in the high socioeconomic status Greek (HiG) group. Adolescents were primarily first- or secondborn, with more of the Greek sample tending to be firstborn. Measures

The Parental Criticism Questionnaire (Harris and Howard, 1984) comprises 18 items describing possible causes of criticism of adolescents by parents. Each parent was required to respond to the question, "How often do you criticize X for b e i n g . . . [e.g.] disrespectful or rude?" using a 4-point scale from (1) never to (4) often. Adolescents' perceptions of the extent of parental criticism were obtained by asking them, "How often are you criticized for being [e.g.] messy or sloppy by your mother?" then, "...by your father?" The Self-Disclosure Inventory (West and Zingle, 1969) consists of six subscales representing topics that an adolescent may discuss with parents. The subscales, each consisting of 8 items, are health and physical development (e.g., "concerns about my health"), personal concerns (e.g., "the mistakes I have made"), boy-girl relations (e.g., "whether I am popular with girls [boys]"), home and family (e.g., "whether my home life is happy"), school concerns (e.g., "my ability to learn at school") and money and status con-

Parental Criticism and Adolescent Self-Disclosure

29

cerns (e.g., "whether I need more or better clothes"). Each adolescent was asked to report how often each issue was discussed with his/her mother, then with his/her father, using a 4-point scale from (1) never to (4) often. Procedure

The questionnaires, which were translated into Greek for the Greek respondents and the GA parents, were completed independently by each family member.

RESULTS Parental Criticism

Following Harris and Howard, responses to each item were dichotomized (never, rarely vs sometimes, often) and Table I shows the frequency of endorsement for each item by family members in each ethnic group. It can be seen that parents most often criticized their adolescents for being "disobedient, breaking family rules," "lazy, not ambitious enough," and "messy, sloppy." Overall, GA mothers and GA and LoG fathers were less critical than the others, and there were some differences in the items endorsed, e.g., GA mothers criticized their adolescents for being "uncommunicative" and "hard to get along with," while HiG mothers and fathers were critical of their adolescents for being "stubborn and uncooperative" and "wild, too impulsive." Adolescents saw themselves as being criticized for being "disobedient, breaking family rules" and "messy, sloppy." GA adolescents saw themselves as being criticized less than the other groups with the exception of LoG adolescents' perceptions of their mothers' criticism. Again, there were some differences between groups with, e.g., AA adolescents seeing themselves as being criticized for being "stubborn, uncooperative" and LoG adolescents as "hard to get on with." Compared with the results reported by Harris and Howard (1.984) for an older U.S. sample, AA adolescents reported less criticism for all items except "mean, unkind to family members," "foolish, no common sense," and "not affectionate," although the ordering of items was similar. The other three groups reported considerably less criticism than Harris and Howard's sample. The results suggested that parents across cultures were similar in the things they saw as irritating or upsetting in their adolescent and that, for GA parents and adolescents, levels of criticism were particularly low. In order to explore further the possibility of cultural differences in overall levels of

7 2 2 4 4 8 2 2 ! 3 2

0 9 3 2 4 4 2 3 3 4 2

0 2 2 4 1

7 4 3 8 5 5

12 8 l0 5 7 9 7

HiG

6 2 4 6 2

7 3 4 5 7 6

10 9 8 6 7 7 5

LoG

0 5 3 3 1

4 4 5 3 3 3

l0 9 Il 5 l0 6 6

AA

1 1 l 3 5

3 2 2 2 1 4

4 5 5 5 5 4 3

2 0 2 11 2

7 l l 9 5 5

12 7 11 2 6 9 5

HiG

Fathers GA

i 0 2 8 2

3 1 l 3 4 4

8 7 5 2 5 6 3

LoG

3 4 0 2 3

4 8 6 5 5 2

8 6 8 4 6 7 5

1 5 i 3 2

4 2 5 4 3 1

7 5 5 3 5 4 5

2 I l 3 3

3 2 2 5 3 5

10 7 l0 6 4 8 7

5 1 l I 1

3 1 I 3 2 5

9 4 3 4 4 3 2

LoG

Adolescents (M) A A GA HiG

aAdolescent (M), Adolescent's perception o f mother; (F), Adolescent's perception of father.

7 7 3 4 5 6 3

12 9 11 9 9 4 4

Disobedient, breaking family rules Lazy, not ambitious enough Messy, sloppy Not appreciative what they do for you Does not apply self to homework Stubborn, uncooperative Inconsiderate, thoughtless Not communicative, won't tell parents what you're doing Mean, unkind to family members Disrespectful Wild, too impulsive Selfish, self-centered Hard to get along with, quarrelsome Having undesirable friends, companions Foolish, no c o m m o n sense Not sociable I m m a t u r e , babyish Not affectionate

GA

AA

Criticism

Mothers

1 6 0 3 3

4 5 5 4 4 2

10 6 4 4 6 7 7

AA

l 2 l i 1

5 2 2 4 1 1

4 3 4 2 4 2 4

GA

l 0 l 4 2

3 1 l 3 3 6

10 5 7 5 3 6 7

HiG

3 1 1 2 3

3 1 l 3 2 5

7 4 3 3 3 4 2

LoG

Adolescents (F)

Table 1. N u m b e r of Mothers and Fathers W h o Were Critical and N u m b e r of Adolescents W h o Perceived Their Parents as Critical (N = 20 in Each Group) a

~o O gg

B

~a W gg

gh

...

= g"

ha O

31

Parental Criticism and Adolescent Self-Disclosure

parental criticism, principal component analyses were conducted on mothers' and fathers' responses separately. For mothers, two factors emerged: Factor 1 (accounting for 29.5~ of the variance) was interpreted as criticism of active, antisocial rebellious behavior and Factor 2 (10.7~ as criticism of reactive behavior reflecting the adolescents' failure to fulfil expectations. For fathers, there was less differentiation between items and a one-factor solution was appropriate. This factor, accounting for 41.4~ of the variance, was a global criticism factor, although behaviors such as lack of affection or communication, or those reflecting immaturity, did not load substantially on the factor. Table II shows factor loadings of items. As a result of the principal component analyses, two scales were derived for mothers' responses by taking items loading .30 or greater for each scale, summing scores on these items, and averaging these. The two scales so formed had high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = .83 for both). Similarly, one scale was derived for father's criticism with high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = .91). Differences between the four groups were explored for each family member separately, using, for mothers, a two-factor multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) (Group [4] x Sex of Adolescent [2]) and for fathers, a two-factor analysis of variance. Adolescents' perceptions of criticism were analyzed in terms of the two factors obtained for mothers' criticism and the global factor for perception of fathers' criticism. Table II. Factor Loadings for Principal Component Analyses of Fathers' and Mothers' Responses to Criticism Questionnaire*

Mothers Criticism by parents Disobedient, breaking family rules Lazy, not ambitious enough Messy, sloppy Not appreciative of what you do for them Does not apply self to schoolwork Stubborn, uncooperative Inconsiderate, thoughtless Not communicative, won't tell you what they're doing Mean, unkind to family members Disrespectful, rude Wild, too impulsive Selfish, self-centered Hard to get along with, quarrelsome Having undesirable friends and companions Foolish, no common sense Not sociable Immature, babyish Not affectionate *Loadings > .30 in italics.

Fathers

1

11

I

.! 1 -.17 .02 .29 .13 .26

.59 .71 .64 .47 .69 .61 .60

.57 .57 .49 .64 .62 .35 .66

.41 .42 .55 .67 .70 .67 .50 .44 .65 .56

-.06

.15

.43

.58

.01

.20

.02

.39 .32

.83 .82 .38

.02 .26 .15 .05 .38

.28 .37 .66 ,66 .57

-.01 .17

Rosenthal, Efklides, and Demetriou

32

Table III confirms that reported levels of criticism were relatively low for all groups. There were no significant effects of group or sex o f adolescent, nor any significant interactions for mother, father, or adolescent data. Thus there was no cultural variation nor variation between boys and girls in levels of parents' criticism or in adolescents' perceptions of criticisms by parents. Table IV shows mean difference scores calculated by subtracting the score for adolescent's perception of parental criticism from mother's perception of self for each o f the two scales (mother-adolescent) and father's perception of self (father-adolescent). These scores showed close agreement between parent-adolescent pairs across all groups, with only 5 of the 24 scores yielding a difference greater than .25. There were no significant effects of group or sex of adolescent, nor any significant interactions from any scale. Thus, the correspondence in parent-adolescent perceptions was similar across the four groups and for boys and girls. Self-Disclosure

The self-disclosure questionnaire, revealing adolescents' degree of openness to mother and to father, showed high internal consistency for all subscales except money (Cronbach's alpha = .76 to .86; money: .58 and .67). A two-factor MANOVA (Group [4] • Sex o f Adolescent [2]) showed no significant differences as a function of sex o f adolescent nor sex by group interactions for disclosure to mother or father, but a significant effect o f group for both (disclosure to mother: Wilks's lambda = .52, p < .001; disclosure to father: Wilks's lambda = .56, p < .01). Mean scores on the six subscales are shown as a function o f group only in Table V. In most areas adolescents disclosed, on average, at least "sometimes" to each parent. The area where the least disclosure occurred was in boy-girl relations, while adolescents were most ready to discuss school concerns. For disclosure to mother, significant univariate effects of group were found for all subscales except health and physical development (personal: F[3,70] = 4.14, p < .01, boy-girl relations: F[3,70] = 4.62, p < .01; home: F[3,70] = 4 . 1 4 , p < .01; school: 27[3,70] = 5.96,p < .001; money: F[3,70] = 3.51, p < .05). Post hoc contrasts (Newman-Keuls procedure) showed that GA adolescents were significantly lower on disclosure about personal concerns, school, and money than LoG adolescents, and lower than all three other groups on boy-girl relations. AA adolescents were significantly lower than LoG adolescents on disclosure of school and money concerns, and lower than all three other groups on home concerns.

1.69 2.10 1.75 1.65 1.88 1.68

2.27 2.17 1.98 2.27 2.17

Girls

1.81

Boys

1.56

1.90

1.56

1.50

i .83

1.71

Boys

GA

1.57

1.66

1.60

1.71

1.66

1.45

Girls

1.81

1.85

1.59

1.80

i .92

1.44

Boys

HiG

!.64

1.86

1.55

1.83

2.09

1.71

Girls

1.72

1.52

1.43

1.68

1.90

1.63

Boys

LoG

1.50

1.63

1.47

1.45

1.98

1.75

Girls

"Adolescent (M), Adolescent's perception of mother's criticism; Adolescent (F), adolescent's perception of father's criticism.

Mother Active rebellion Reactive nonfulfillment o f expectations Father Global Adolescent (M)* Active rebellion Reactive nonfulfillment o f expectations Adolescent (F) a Global

Criticism scale

AA

Table Ill. Mean Scores on Parental Criticism Scales for Family Members as a Function of Group and Sex (from [1] Never to [4] Often)

,'~

=.

o_

~s

m

.o

r

Im

la

Criticism scale 0.03 0.22 0.09

0.00 0.01

Girls

- 0.21

Boys

- 0.14

- 0.17

0.20

Boys

GA

0.06

- 0.08

- 0.28

Girls

- 0.03

0.14

- 0.28

Boys

HiG

0.19

0.18

0.13

Girls

- 0.07

0.45

0.23

Boys

LoG

- 0.07

0.44

0.34

Girls

"A positive score indicates a higher score for focal person. A negative score indicates a higher score for other's perceptions of focal person.

Mother-adolescent Active rebellion Reactive nonfulfillment of expectations Father-adolescent Global

AA

Table IV. Mean Difference Scores of P a re nt -A dol e s c e nt Pairs on Parental Criticism Questionnaire as a Function of Group and Sex of Adolescent ~

O

K ,%

m

~~

m ff-

.b.

Health Personal Boy-Girl Home School Money

2.48 2.55 1.88 2.03 2.90 2.35

M 1.92 2.24 1.56 1.94 2.44 1.94

F

AA

0.56 0.31 0.32 0.09 0.46 0.41

M-F 2.23 2.33 1.48 2.56 2.78 2.32

M 2.00 2.12 1.43 2.30 2.59 2.30

F

GA

0.23 0.21 0.05 0.26 0.19 0.02

M-F 2.59 2.81 1.94 2.62 3.22 2.49

M 2.33 2.54 1.67 2.42 2.99 2.25

F

HiG

0.26 0.27 0.27 0.20 0.23 0.24

M-F

2.67 3.05 2.21 2.67 3.54 2.75

M

2.22 2.45 1.89 2.49 3.27 2.38

F

LoG

0.45 0.60 0.32 0.18 0.27 0.37

M-F

Table V. Mean Scores on Self-Disclosure to Mother (M) and Father (F), and Differences in Disclosure to Mother and Father (M-F) as a Function of Groups (from [1] Never to [4] Often)

g_

U,t

J.

o_

g$

n.

.~

r

36

Rosenthal, Efklides, and Demetriou

Disclosure to father yielded a significant univariate effect only for school concerns F[3,69] = 7.84, p < .001), with AA and GA adolescents disclosing significantly less than both Greek groups. There were nonsignificant trends (p < .06) for effects on home and money concerns, where disclosure to AA fathers tended to be less than for the other groups. In summary, differences in disclosure to both parents tended to be not between AA and GA adoles, cents, but between these groups and the two Greek resident groups. Table V shows that adolescents disclosed more to mothers than to fathers, and a MANOVA with two factors--groups (4) and sex of adolescent (2)-applied to the difference scores (mother-adolescent) yielded a significant effect for group (Wilks's lambda = .54, p < .01), but no significant effect for sex of adolescent nor a significant interaction between these. There was a significant univariate effect for group only on disclosure about money concerns (b-13,69] = 4.17, p < .01). Post hoc contrasts (Newman-Keuls procedure) revealed that the discrepancy between disclosure to mother and father was less for GA adolescents than for LoG and AA adolescents. Overall, there was less discrepancy for GA adolescents than for the other three groups, especially the LoG and AA adolescents.

Criticism and Self-Disclosure

Self-disclosure scores were correlated with adolescents' perceptions of criticism for the two mother and the global father criticism dimensions. Correlations for the total group were very low, with the exception of self-disclosure about school concerns and criticism o f rebellious behavior by mother (r = - 0.33) and criticism by father ( - 0.36). However, correlations for each group separately revealed interesting group differences. For the HiG and AA adolescents, all correlations were low and well below the critical value o f 0.37 (for N = 20). For the LoG adolescents, self-disclosure about health and home concerns correlated 0.42 and 0.44, respectively, with mothers' criticism o f adolescents for failing to fulfill expectations. GA adolescents alone showed the expected inverse correlation between self-disclosure and parental criticism. Four self-disclosure scales yielded significant correlations with mothers' criticism of antisocial rebellious behavior, health ( - 0 . 3 9 ) , personal concerns ( - 0.74), home concerns ( - 0.43), and school concerns ( - 0.70). Personal and school concerns were also correlated with mothers' criticism o f adolescents for not fulfilling expectations ( - 0.58 and - 0.56, respectively). Fathers' criticism was correlated significantly with self-disclosure about school concerns only ( - 0 . 6 8 ) .

Parental Criticism and Adolescent Self-Disclosure

37

DISCUSSION Levels of criticism reported by parents and adolescents were relatively low, and lower than those reported by Harris and Howard (1984), a finding that could be related to the younger age of the present sample. It is likely that criticism by parents becomes more prevalent as adolescents move through their teen years, and as issues of independence and identity achievement become increasingly salient. Although the discussion focuses on similarities and differences between groups, it is noteworthy that no sex differences were found either for criticism or self-disclosure. Harris and Howard reported some sex differences in sources of criticism, but overall male and females were equally subjected to criticism. NorreU (1984) concluded that the relationship between, sex of the discloser and amount of disclosure is unclear, although it appears males and females differ in the nature of information they disclose. This was not so in the present study. There was reasonable consistency across the groups in the behaviors most criticized, with parents particularly concerned about disobedience, laziness, or lack of ambition and messiness, confirming Harris and Howard's findings. It seems that, for most parents, these are areas central to the smooth functioning of family life. Contrary to expectations, Greek-Australian parents and adolescents responded less frequently than other groups that criticism occurred at least sometimes. However, when responses were aggregated according to the dimensions underlying the areas of criticism, these differences disappeared. Interestingly, there was close correspondence between parents' and adolescents' reports of criticism across all four groups. It appears either that the mismatch of values that led to predictions of greater criticism for the immigrant Greek families does not occur or that the possible deleterious effects of dealing with two value systems have been exaggerated. Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that adolescents can integrate their two cultural worlds and adopt behaviors appropriate to each depending on the situation (Kourakis, 1983, Rosenthal and Hrynevich, 1985). It is of interest, however, that the self-disclosure of Greek-Australian adolescents was lower than that of the Greek resident groups (and that one of the immigrant Greek mothers' most frequent criticisms was that their adolescents were uncommunicative). Perhaps one way for Greek-Australian adolescents to deal with the potential conflict arising from different value systems is to reveal less of their innermost thoughts and feelings to their parents. This effect on self-disclosure seemed more marked for mothers than fathers since for the other three groups there was greater discrepancy, in favor of mothers, in the amount of selfdisclosure to parents. It is unlikely that this reflects a breaking down of the

Rosenthal, Efklides, and Demetriou

38

traditionally closer ties between Greek mothers and their children compared with fathers. Rather, mothers would be the more likely target of disclosure so that any monitoring by the adolescent would have more impact on selfdisclosure to mothers. The greater openness of the resident Greek adolescents, especially to mothers, compared with the Anglo-Australians, is in line with the observations that relationships between Greek parents and their children tend to be close and characterized by warmth and intimacy (Doumanis, 1983; Triandis and Vassiliou, 1972; G. and V. Vassiliou, 1970). It is quite likely that this closeness results in young children being socialized to disclose to their parents, a process not shared by their Anglo-Australian peers. Expected differences between the working-class and professional Greeks did not emerge. Possibly the high value placed by Greeks on the maintenance of family cohesiveness and the importance of the parent-child relationship might have ameliorated any "modernization" effects among the professional group. The correlations between self-disclosure and perceived criticism by parents highlight the observation that the Greek-Australians are a special case in this study. These adolescents were the only group for whom self-disclosure was consistently negatively related to parental criticism, especially that of mothers. Whether reduction in self-disclosure results from high levels of criticism or whether the converse holds cannot be determined from this study. Nevertheless, for these adolescents there is a connection between the two measures that is not apparent for their Greek and Anglo-Australian peers. Parental criticism may not be a direct or comprehensive measure of familial conflict since it refers only to judgments about behavior that is expressed overtly, unlike other measures that are often cognitive judgments about attitudes and beliefs. However, taken in conjunction with readiness to disclose, this study has yielded interesting information about some aspects of Greek and Australian family life, especially about the adaptations made by the children of immigrant Greeks.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank Laurel Bornholt, who acted as research assistant, Helen De Cieri and the Greek interviewers, and the parents and adolescents who participated in the study.

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Parental Criticism and Adolescent Self-Disclosure

39

Connell, W. F., Stroobant, R. E., Sinclair, K. E., Connell, R. W., and Rogers, K. W. (1975). 12 to 20: Studies o f City Youth. Hicks Smith, Sydney. Doumanis, M. (1983). Mothering in Greece: From Collectivism to Individualism. Academic Press, London. Hamid, P. N., and WylIie, A. J. (1980). What generation gap? Adolescence 15: 385391. Harris, I. D., and Howard, K. I. 0984). Parental criticism and the adolescent experience. I. Youth Adoles. 13: I13-121. Kourakis, M. (1983). Biculturaiism: The effect upon personal and social adjustment. Unpublished masters thesis, University of Adelaide. Norrell, J. E. (1984). Self-disclosure: Implications for the study of parent-adolescent interaction. I. Youth Adoles. 13: 163-178. Potamianou, A. (1978, August). On aspects of change in Greek urban families. Paper presented at the International Association for Child Psychiatry and Allied Professions 9th International Congress, Melbourne, Australia, Rosenthai, R. A. (1984). Intergenerational conflict and culture: A study of immigrant and nonimmigrant adolescents and their parents. Genet. PsychoL Mongr. 109: 53-75. Rosenthal, D. A., and Bornholt, L. (in press). Expectations about development in Greek- and AngloAustralian fand~es. J. Cross-Cultural Psychol. Rosenthal, D. A., and Hrynevich, C. (1985) Ethnicity and ethnic identity: A comparative study of Greek-, Italian-, and Anglo-Australian adolescents. Inter. J. Psychol. 20: 723-742. Thomas, L. E. (1974). Generational discontinuity in beliefs: An exploration of the generation gap. J. Social Issues 29: 1-21. Tolor, A. (1976). The generation gap: Fact or fiction? Genet. Psychol. Monogr. 94: 35-130. Triandis, H. C., and Vassiliou, V. (1972). A comparative analysis of subjective culture. In Triandis, H. C. (ed.), The Analysis o f Subjective Culture. Wiley, New York. Vassitiou, G., and Vassiliou, V. (1970). On aspects of childrearing in Greece. Communication No. 82, Athenian Institute of Anthropos, Athens. West, L. W., and Zingle, H. W. (1969). A self-disclosure inventory for adolescents. Psychol. Rep. 24: 439-455.