Doing What You Say and Saying What You Do

Abstract

This study compared adolescents'and parents'reasoning about actual family conflict in individual interviews and family interactions. A sample of 93 adolescents in Grades 5 through 12 and their parents justified actual conflicts in individual interviews and then discussed conflicts together in a Family Social Interaction Task Parents generally treated conflicts as issues of social convention, but they offered more conventional justifications in individual interviews than in family interaction. Adolescents primarily viewed conflicts as issues of personal jurisdiction, but they appealed to personal jurisdiction more in interviews than in family interaction, whereas they offered more prudential/pragmatic justifications in interactions than in interviews. When taking their adolescents'perspectives, parents reasoned about adolescents'personal choice in both interviews and interaction, and adolescents articulated their parents' conventional perspectives; there were more moral and prudential/pragmatic counterarguments in interactions than in interviews. The results are discussed in terms of strategic interactions and adolescent development.