Parental Privacy Invasions and Adolescent Depressive Symptoms Coxner, M. & Närvä Jacobsson, S.
Örebro University
Abstract
Parents’ use of psychological control is associated with several negative outcomes, including adolescent depressive symptoms. Until recently, parental privacy invasions have not been included in the conceptualization of psychological control. We examined the association between privacy invasions and adolescent depressive symptoms. Furthermore, we studied adolescents’ perceptions of their parents’ intent and their responses to privacy invasions. Analyses were performed on cross-sectional data (N = 592). The results showed that privacy invasions were associated with adolescent depressive symptoms. Adolescent perception of parental intent was significantly associated with depressive symptoms, whereas no relationship was found between responses and depressive symptoms. The findings indicate that privacy invasions are similar to psychological control in their relations to depressive symptoms, supporting their inclusion under the rubric of psychological control.
Keywords: Adolescents, psychological control, privacy invasions, depressive symptoms, parenting.
Clinical Psychology Program, Spring 2018. Supervisor: Lauree Tilton-Weaver, Ph.D.
Föräldrars inkräktande beteenden och ungdomars depressiva symptom Coxner, M. & Närvä Jacobsson, S.
Örebro University
Sammanfattning
Föräldrars användande av psykologisk kontroll har associerats med flertalet negativa utfall för ungdomar, däribland depressiva symptom. Att inkräkta på ungdomars privatliv har tills nyligen inte inkluderats i begreppet psykologisk kontroll. I denna studie undersöktes relationen mellan föräldrars inkräktande på sina ungdomars privatliv och ungdomars depressiva symptom. Vidare studerades ungdomars uppfattning av föräldrarnas intention och deras respons på dessa föräldrabeteenden. Analyser utfördes på tvärsnittlig data (N = 592). Resultaten visade att föräldrars inkräktande beteenden hade en signifikant relation med ungdomarnas depressiva symptom. Ungdomars uppfattning av förälderns intention var associerat med depressiva symptom, däremot hittades ingen association mellan ungdomars respons och depressiva symptom. Fynden indikerar att föräldrars inkräktande beteenden liknar psykologisk kontroll i dess relation till depressiva symptom, vilket stödjer att det inkluderas i begreppet psykologisk kontroll.
Nyckelord: Adolescents, psychological control, privacy invasions, depressive symptoms, parenting.
Psykologexamensuppsats, VT 2018. Handledare: Lauree Tilton-Weaver, Ph.D.
Parental Privacy Invasions and Adolescent Depressive Symptoms
Adolescence is a developmental period when vulnerability for depressive symptoms notably increases (Ge, Lorenz, Conger, Elder, & Simons, 1994). Symptoms, which include sad, empty, or irritable mood, combined with cognitive and somatic changes, increase dramatically (American Psychiatric Association, 2013; Karel, 1997). Fifteen percent of adolescents are estimated to have experienced an event of major depressive disorder and clinically significant levels of depressive symptoms are found in 20 to 30 percent of adolescents (Evans, 2014). There are also gender differences, with more girls experiencing depressive symptoms than boys. By the age of 15, depression rates are twice as high for girls than for boys (Graber & Sontag, 2009). Moreover, experiencing depressive symptoms in adolescence places an
individual at higher risk for psychosocial problems, including depressive episodes and suicide later in life (Frost, Reinherz, Pakiz-Camra, Fiaconia, & Lekowitz, 1999; Weissman et al., 1999). Thus, adolescent depressive symptoms are a serious problem that need to be addressed and studied. In this paper, we study a theoretical antecedent of depression—parents’ invasion of adolescents’ privacy, a form of psychological control.
Psychological Control
Among the proposed causes of this increase in adolescent depressive symptoms is parenting behavior—specifically, parents’ use of psychological control (Barber, Stolz & Olsen, 2005). The construct of psychological control as a parenting practice has been studied since the late 1960s and has been defined in multiple ways ever since (Barber, 2002).
According to Schaefer’s (1965) original definition, parental psychological control includes behaviors that, latently, control adolescents in ways that inhibit their individual development. Barber (1996) took the conceptualization further, describing psychological control as
parenting behaviors that covertly manipulate adolescents without respecting their emotional and psychological needs. It is, in other words, an invasive way of parenting that tampers with
adolescents’ cognitions, emotions, and behaviors, in directions that are preferred by the parent (Soenens, Park, Vansteenkiste & Mouratidis, 2012). Psychological control can have a
profound impact on adolescents and interferes with young people’s development of autonomy, volition, social relationships, and stable identities (Barber, 1996).
Psychological control includes behaviors such as love withdrawal, inducing guilt, and shaming (Barber, 1996). More recently, the construct has been theoretically expanded to include conveying disappointment, invalidating adolescents’ emotions, pressuring, overprotecting, and violating adolescents’ privacy (Barber, Xia, Olsen, McNeely & Bose, 2012; Soenens et al., 2012). The last—privacy invasions—is the focus of this paper.
Previous research on psychological control using traditional definitions shows that psychological control has a negative impact on mental health, self-esteem, dependency, social withdrawal, and depressive symptoms, to name a few (Barber, 1996; Barber, 2002; Barber et al., 2005; Smetana & Daddis, 2002). Moreover, studies have also discovered that high levels of psychological control are associated with externalizing problems and parent-adolescent conflict (Barber et al., 2005). These effects appear in a variety of samples and across cultures, including cultures that traditionally are categorized as both collectivistic and individualistic (Barber et al., 2005; Soenens et al., 2012). Furthermore, the connection between parental psychological control and poorer adolescent mental health is also evident when controlling for gender of both adolescent and parent (Barber et al., 2005).
Privacy Invasions
Privacy invasions have not typically been included under the rubric of psychological control. The recent addition recognizes that when parents attempt to control areas that are personal or private issues, adolescents perceive the behavior as psychologically controlling and intrusive (Barber et al., 2012; Kakihara & Tilton-Weaver, 2009; Smetana & Daddis, 2002).
Privacy, the control over personal space, body, cognitions, emotions, and relationships, plays a crucial part in developing an identity, and both establishing and maintaining autonomy (Barber et al., 2012; Hawk et al., 2013; Margulis, 2003). Having privacy, when needed, is essential for well-being in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood alike (Hawk, Hale, Raaijmakers & Meeus, 2008; Margulis, 2003). In privacy, individuals are provided with the possibility to process experiences, cognitions and emotions, recover, experiment, and be themselves, or begin to attempt to discover who that person is (Margulis, 2003). During the developmental period of adolescence, individuals’ need for privacy generally increases (Hawk et al., 2013), and having privacy is considered essential for developing a stable sense of self, apart from parents (Barber et al., 2012; Ledbetter & Vik, 2012).
Invasions of privacy, then, have the possibility to impair all of these functions. Given the importance of privacy for regulating emotions and self-development, it makes sense that privacy invasions would be related to mood dysregulation in general, and depressive
symptoms more specifically (Hale, Raaijmakers, Gerlsma & Meeus, 2007).
What are privacy invasions? Privacy invasions occurs when a parent in some way exerts control over, or demands, requests, or acquires information about the matters that adolescents claims as their personal concern (Hawk et al., 2009), without adolescents’ willingness to provide access. Different kinds of privacy invasions include reading/looking through text messages, diaries, or social media accounts without adolescents’ permission, entering adolescents’ bedroom without permission, or going through adolescents’ possessions (Ledbetter & Vik, 2012). Moreover, demanding information about adolescents’ personal lives and relationships may be viewed as invasions.
During adolescence, privacy invasions have been associated with several negative outcomes (Margulis, 2003). For example, previous research shows that adolescents who
perceive their parents as invasive experience higher levels of depressive symptoms and anxiety (Hale et al., 2007). Furthermore, privacy invasions tend to have a negative impact on the relationship between the adolescent and the parent making the invasions (Petronio, 1994).
However, measurement issues limit scientific understanding of how parents’ actions are linked to adolescents’ adjustment. Previous research has measured adolescents’
interpretations of parents’ behaviors (e.g., “My parents are always nosing into my business; have to know everything about me”, Hale et al., 2007), rather than actual parent behaviors. To include privacy invasions as a type of psychological control, parenting behaviors, rather than adolescents’ interpretations of behaviors, should be measured. In addition, it is assumed, but not measured, that parents intend to invade privacy. Thus, neither parents’ invasive behaviors nor adolescents’ perceptions of parents’ intent have been studied in relation to adolescent depressive symptoms.
Perceived Intent
As we pointed out, one aspect of privacy invasions that has not been measured and examined is whether adolescents believe their parents’ privacy invasions were intentionally or accidental. People, in general,clearly differentiate between intentional and unintentional acts. People are usually also considered to be more responsible for intentional acts than
unintentional behavior (Heider, 1958; Malle, 1999). Moreover, intentional acts are perceived as more harmful than unintentional acts, even when the acts are equally detrimental (Ames & Fiske, 2013). Thus, intentionality is an important dimension of privacy invasions that could affect adolescents’ adjustment. Specifically, we argue that when adolescents believe their parents’ invasions are intentional, rather than accidental, the invasions will be more harmful for them, relating to higher levels of depressive symptoms.
Adolescents’ Responses to Invasions
Another important but understudied dimension in privacy invasions is adolescents’ responses to parents’ invasions. Petronio and others (Petronio & Harriman, 1989 as cited in Petronio, 1994; Ledbetter & Vik, 2012) described several different responses. These can be grouped into a) confronting parents about their invasions, b) trying to make their parents feel guilty, c) acting to evade their parents’ invasions, and d) just ignoring the invasions.
Although, the research that exists on adolescents’ responses to privacy invasions is limited, other research suggests that the strategies adolescents use to defend their privacy are probably related to their adjustment.
Confronting, a direct overt response, would include asking parents what they want to know or asking invading parents to stop (Ledbetter & Vik, 2012). It is possible that
confrontation enhances adolescent adjustment. Like other openly-expressed responses to control, confronting parents when they invade privacy may open up negotiations about
privacy boundaries, prompting a realignment of parent and adolescent expectations (Collins & Luebker, 1994). If confrontations open up negotiations, they would be associated with less depressive symptoms. Alternatively, if confrontation generates conflict, they would most likely be related to more depressive symptoms (Rueter, Scaramella, Wallace, & Conger, 1999). Privacy invasions, in general, are associated with greater conflict (Hawk, Keijsers, Hale, & Meeus, 2009). It is possible that adolescents’ confrontations are the reason why.
Another direct response, inducing guilt, could include refusing to talk to invading parents or otherwise conveying they should feel guilty (Ledbetter & Vik, 2012). Like psychological control exerted by parents, it is unlikely to be effective but may damage the parent-adolescent relationship (Barber, 2002). It would make sense, then, that attempts to induce guilt would be associated with more, not fewer, depressive symptoms.
Evading, a defense more grounded in secretive behaviors, includes hiding personal belongings, withholding personal information, or locking the door (Ledbetter & Vik, 2012). Attempts to evade parents’ privacy invasions may be related to greater depressive symptoms, since secrecy is related to depressive symptoms (Finkenauer, Engels & Meeus, 2002).
To ignore invasive parenting behavior, the adolescent would deliberately avoid responding in any way, even though the behavior in fact has been noticed and registered (Mirabile, 2015). Although ignoring parents’ behavior may seem ineffective, it is one way that children aim to eliminate parenting behavior (Kuczynski & Kochanska, 1990). An alternative reason for ignoring is that it may allow the illusion that nothing harmful has happened. Such denial may allow adolescents to preserve their relationships with invasive parents. Ignoring as a response implies that the adolescent neither confront the invading parent, nor attempts to prevent future privacy invasions. Therefore, it could be speculated that ignoring likely does not reduce privacy invasions. Thus, it is likely related to more adolescent depressive symptoms.
Age and Gender Variation
Another unstudied issue is whether the age or gender of the adolescent changes the relations between privacy invasions and adolescent depressive symptoms. There is good reason to believe that the link between privacy invasions and depressive symptoms may be stronger for older adolescents than younger. Generally, older adolescents expect more control over their personal and private lives (Smetana & Asquith, 1994), indicating that privacy invasions might be more destructive for older adolescents than younger. Parents failure to yield control when it is expected by the adolescent is generally related to poorer outcomes, including greater levels of depressive symptoms (Hasebe, Nucci, & Nucci, 2004).
Available information suggests privacy invasions may be more problematic for boys than girls (Hawk et al., 2009), as it generates more conflict for boys than girls. We speculate
then, that the association between privacy invasions and depressive symptoms will be stronger for boys than for girls. With respect to gender of parent, there is no information available on differences between mothers and fathers. As a result, this is left as an exploratory question.
The Present Study
The aim of the current study was to examine the relationship between perceived parental privacy invasions and adolescent depressive symptoms. Specifically, we studied adolescents’ reports on the frequency of privacy invasions for mothers and fathers,
respectively. We also examined adolescents’ perceptions of parental intent and adolescent responses to privacy invasions.
The first research question for this study was: (1) Is the frequency of parental privacy invasions related to adolescent depressive symptoms? In relation to this question, we
controlled for parents’ depressive symptoms, because children of depressed parents report more symptoms themselves, due to genetic and environmental contributions (Downey & Coyne, 1990; Goodman & Gotlib, 1999). Additional research questions were: (2) Are adolescents’ perceptions of parental intent related to their depressive symptoms? and (3) Are adolescents’ responses to privacy invasions related to their depressive symptoms?
Based on previous research, we hypothesized that there would be a significant relationship between parental privacy invasions and adolescent depressive symptoms. We also speculated that because there are gender and age differences in adolescent perception of privacy invasions, it might be possible that the associations between privacy invasions and depressive symptoms differ as a function of adolescents’ age and gender. We speculated that privacy invasions and depressive symptoms would be more strongly related among older adolescents, compared to younger, because older adolescents expect to be able to regulate their own privacy and the violation of such expectations would be more problematic for them.
Likewise, we speculated that the link between privacy invasions and depressive symptoms would be stronger for boys, because boys react more negatively to privacy invasions. Therefore, adolescents’ age and gender were viewed as moderating variables.
With respect to our second question, we expected a significant association between perceived intent and adolescent depressive symptoms, with the perception of intentional privacy invasions having a positive relation to depressive symptoms. By comparison, we expected unintentional invasions to have a weaker, positive association, or no significant association, because adolescents are more likely to believe their parents intended no harm.
Furthermore, we predicted that there would be an association between adolescents’ responses to perceived parental privacy invasions and depressive symptoms. We expected that attempting to induce guilt, evading invasions, and ignoring invasions would be positively associated with depressive symptoms. Because confrontation opens the possibility for negotiation but may also potentiate conflict, we did not pose a direction for the association between confrontation and depressive symptoms but expected a significant association. To our knowledge, the role of beliefs about intent and responses to privacy invasions, and their connection to adolescent depressive symptoms, have not yet been studied. Thus, our
expectations are largely tentative.
Method Participants
Participants were 592 adolescents (M = 14.60 years, SD = 0.86, range = 12 - 16) in 7th, 8th, and 9th grade living in a middle sized Swedish city. Of the participants, 293 were girls (49.5 %) and 298 were boys (50.3 %). The adolescents participated along with their parents, with 146 parents taking part in the study. The sample size was based on planned analyses and provided the study with sufficient power.
Procedure
The data that were analyzed in this study were initially collected for the project “Upp och Ut: Ungdomar i förändring.” Permission to use the data was granted by the primary investigator of the project and the supervisor of this thesis, Professor Lauree Tilton-Weaver. The authors of this thesis were made aware of the responsibilities concerning privacy and confidentiality, signing agreements from the primary investigator prior to beginning any analyses of the data. The data were stored on password protected encrypted files that were handled with greatest caution and permanently deleted after the end of the project. Individual cases could not be identified by any detailed demographic information in the data that were analyzed, and confidentiality was thereby ensured. The “Upp och Ut: Ungdomar i förändring” project was evaluated and approved by the Regional Ethical Board in Uppsala (Regionala etikprövningsnämnden i Uppsala). Regarding ethical considerations, answering questions about for example one’s depressive symptoms might evoke negative emotions. Thus, there is a possibility that some participants might have experienced temporary discomfort. However, the questions are not considered to be the cause or a contributing factor to worsening potential depressive symptoms, and thereby did not pose a psychological risk. Furthermore, the use of the data for this thesis was approved by the Psychology Program Ethics Group of Örebro University.
The cross-sectional data were collected using questionnaires administered in the beginning of 2011 in southern Sweden. After having had the project approved by the chief education officers in the municipality, the principals and school staff were informed, and lists of students were provided to identify potential participants. The investigators sent information about the study to the parents of the adolescents, together with forms that allowed parents to withdraw their adolescents from participation (via mail, e-mail, or phone). If no such
The adolescent data were collected in class by trained research assistants. Prior to the administration of the questionnaires, assistants explained the purpose of the study,
confidentiality, voluntary participation, withdrawal and assent, in a language adjusted to the adolescents’ educational level to ensure that the adolescents were able to give an informed assent. The adolescents who gave their assent to participate completed the questionnaire in another classroom. All participating adolescents were given movie passes worth 100 kr.
Parents were recruited through classroom lists of home addresses. Packages were sent to the home address, with instructions for forwarding one package to a non-residential parent if necessary. All parents filled out their questionnaires at home and returned them via postage-paid envelopes that they marked with their family code. Participating parents were also sent movie passes.
Roughly 10% of the data were missing. Little’s test (Χ2 = 7810.71, df = 6417, p <
.001) suggested that the data were not missing completely at random. There were no
indications that levels of variables were related to missingness, so we assumed the data were missing at random. We used person-mean replacement to deal with the missing data.
Although not ideal, we did so because imputation using the EM algorithm failed to converge. This is most likely because some of the items are legitimate skips and have categorical responses.
The sample size for this study (N = 592) differed across analyses due to missing information. For example, the paired samples t-test only includes cases which have non-missing values for both variables analyzed. Analyses were thereby performed on complete cases. However, this did not affect the power of the study.
Measures
Depressive Symptoms, Adolescents. Adolescent participants were administered “The
Carey, Ruggiero, Enyart, & Gresham, 1986) adapted from the CES-D (Radloff, 1977) and translated into Swedish. Only 16 items were used (no positive affect items). Each item was rated on a 4-point Likert scale, anchored 1 (Not at all) and 4 (Often). Examples of the items used were: “In the last week, I… have worried about things that I don’t usually worry about,” “haven’t felt happy, even though my family or friends tried to cheer me up,” and “couldn’t concentrate on what I was doing.” The measure had good reliability (⍺ = .94).
Privacy Invasions. Adolescents reported on their parents’ privacy invasions using 9
items tapping perceived frequency of invasions, perceived intentions, and responses to privacy invasion. The measure included items developed by Hawk, Becht, and Branje (2016) and amended by Tilton-Weaver (adding intent and response; 2015). Reporting on mothers and fathers separately, participants first indicated how often their parents engaged in the
behaviors. They used a 4-point response format, anchored 1 (It has never happened) and 4 (It happens all the time). They then indicated whether the invasions were accidental, on purpose, or both. One final question asked adolescents how they generally responded to their parents’ invasions, to which they could respond: “Just ignore her/his behavior;” “try to make her/him feel bad about it (e.g., I stop talking to her/him, try to make her/him feel guilty);” “confront her/him (e.g., directly ask what she/he wants to know, demand she/he stop);” “make sure she/he can’t get what she/he wants (e.g., lock the door, change passwords, hide things).” Sample items were: “asked you a lot of personal questions,” “tried to listen when you were talking with friends,” and “checked what you have in your bag without asking first.”
Responses to frequency of invasions were aggregated into a mean. Intent was
aggregated by separately summing the invasions that adolescents indicated were on purpose, by accident, or both. Adolescents’ responses to privacy invasions were treated as categorical variables.
Parents were administered the same measures but reworded so that they reported on their own behaviors only. The scale for frequency of invasions had good reliability (⍺ = .78).
Depressive Symptoms, Parents. In order to have a comparable measure of depressive
symptoms, parents reported on their own symptoms using “The Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression Scale” (CES-D) (Radloff, 1977). Each item was rated on a 4-point Likert scale (1 = rarely or none of the time (< 1 day), 4 = most or all of the time (5 – 7 days). The items used were, for example: In the last week… I was bothered by things that don't usually bother me; I felt that I was just as good as other people; I felt lonely. The measure showed sufficient reliability (⍺ = .75).
Plan of Analyses
The main research question regarding the potential relationship between perceived parental privacy invasions and adolescent depressive symptoms was answered using hierarchical linear regression analysis. We performed three parallel analyses, analyzing adolescents’ reports on maternal privacy invasions, adolescents’ reports on paternal privacy invasions, and parents’ own reports on privacy invasions separately. Adolescent depressive symptoms were the dependent/outcome variable and the three dimensions of privacy invasions were the predictor variables.
For the regressions examining frequency of privacy invasions, we had entered three blocks. In the first block, we entered adolescent gender, adolescent age, and parent depressive symptoms. This introduces the linear terms for the moderators and controlled parent
depression. Next, we entered one of the three reports of privacy invasions. In a final block we tested moderation. Following Cohen, Cohen, West, and Aiken (2003), we created interaction terms by multiplying the effect coded gender (boys = - 1) and centered (mean-deviated) continuous variables (i.e., frequency of invasions, adolescent age). These terms were entered
together. Should the interactions be significant, we would probe using procedures outlined by Cohen et al. (2003).
For perceived intent and responses, we examined the correlations between the privacy invasion dimension and adolescents reported depressive symptoms.
Results Descriptive Statistics
Means, standard deviations and bivariate correlations for the study variables are presented in Table 1. Distributions for perceived parental intent and adolescent responses are reported in Tables 2 and 3. Regarding the frequency distributions, adolescent depressive symptoms were, as expected, positively skewed, demonstrating that most adolescents reported low levels of depressive symptoms. The frequencies of perceived privacy invasions, across all reports, were also positively skewed. This suggests that privacy invasions are relatively rare. Parents’ own reports of their depressive symptoms were also positively skewed.
Preliminary Analyses
Prior to conducting the regressions, we examined the zero-order correlations for multicollinearity. We found none at the zero-order level (see Table 1 for correlations). We next examined gender and reporter differences in privacy invasions. For gender of adolescent, no significant differences in frequency of perceived privacy invasions for neither mothers, nor fathers, were found. Furthermore, for parent reports, there were no significant differences by adolescent gender.
With respect to perceived differences across adolescents’ perception of mothers’ and fathers’ privacy invasions, the paired samples t-test showed that Swedish adolescents
perceived parent differences in the frequency of privacy invasions, t(527) = 15.45, p < .001. Specifically, they reported that mothers invaded their privacy more (M = 1.72, SD = .46) than fathers (M = 1.46, SD = .43).
Are Parental Privacy Invasions Related to Adolescent Depressive Symptoms?
We next conducted regressions to test whether parent privacy invasions predicted adolescent depressive symptoms. The results of these regressions are presented in Table 4. Our first regression analyzed adolescents’ reports on mothers’ privacy invasions. The first step of the hierarchical regression was significant, R2 = .14, ∆F(3, 135) = 7.47, p < .001. Only the estimate for adolescent gender was significant. Specifically, girls reported higher levels of depressive symptoms than did boys, b = .23, SE = .05, β = .38, t = 4.72, p < .001. The second step added adolescents’ reports on their perception of maternal privacy invasions. This step was significant, ΔR2 = .11, ∆F(1, 134) = 19.53, p < .001. Supporting our hypothesis, the
estimate for maternal privacy invasions was significant, that is, a greater frequency of perceived maternal privacy invasions predicted higher levels of adolescent depressive symptoms, b = .51, SE = .12, β =.34, t = 4.42, p < .001. The final step, introducing
interactions, was not significant, ∆R2 = .00, ∆F(2, 132) = .34, p = .72. That is, there was no
indication that the association between maternal privacy invasions and adolescent depressive symptoms was significantly moderated by adolescent gender nor age.
Next, adolescents’ reports on their perception of fathers’ privacy invasions were analyzed. The first step was significant, R2 = .14, ∆F(3, 129) = 7.14, p < .001. Again, girls reported higher levels of depressive symptoms than boys, b = .22, SE = .05, β = .37, t = 4.56, p < .001. In the second step, we entered adolescents’ perception of paternal privacy invasions. As was the case for maternal privacy invasions, this step was significant, ΔR2 = .08, ∆F(1, 128) = 12.33, p = .001. A greater reported frequency of perception of paternal privacy invasions predicted higher levels of adolescent depressive symptoms, b = .42, SE = .12, β = .28, t = 3.51, p = .001, supporting our hypothesis. Adding the interactions in the third step produced a non-significant result, ∆R2 = .03, ∆F(2, 126) = 2.75, p = .07. That is, the
relationship between privacy invasions and depressive symptoms was not significantly moderated by adolescent gender or age, either.
In the next model, we analyzed the relationship between parents’ own reports on frequency of privacy invasions and adolescent depressive symptoms. The first step, being a control block, was significant, R2 = .14, ∆F(3, 137) = 7.36, p < .001. Specifically, the estimate for adolescent gender was significant, with girls reporting higher levels of depressive
symptoms than boys, b = .23, SE = .05, β = .38, t = 4.70, p < .001. The second step, including parent reported frequency of privacy invasions, was non-significant, ΔR2 = .00, ∆F(1, 136) = .55, p = .46. Entering the interactions in the third step of the model, produced a
non-significant result, ∆R2 = .03, ∆F(2, 134) = 2.11, p = .13.
Are Adolescents’ Perceptions of Parental Intent Related to Their Depressive Symptoms?
There were small, but significant, positive correlations between adolescents’ depressive symptoms and their perception of their mothers’ intent when invading their
privacy, r(563) = .12, p < .01 for intentional invasions, and r(563) = .17, p < .01 for invasions that were sometimes intentional and sometimes accidental. There was no significant
correlation between adolescents perceiving their mother invading by accident and their depressive symptoms. For the perception of fathers’ privacy invasions, the same correlations were significant. That is, there was a positive, albeit small correlation between adolescents’ depressive symptoms and their perceptions of their fathers’ intentionally invading their privacy invasions, and r(563) = .08, p < .05, or sometimes intentionally and sometimes accidentally, r(563) = .15, p < .01. Overall, then, when adolescents felt their parents were intentionally invading their privacy, they reported feeling more depressed.
Adolescent Response to Parental Privacy Invasions.
There were no significant correlations between adolescents’ depressive symptoms and their responses to either mothers’ or fathers’ privacy invasions. Distributions of adolescent
response are presented as percentages in Table 3. The most common response reported by adolescents was to confront the parent invading their privacy, both when reporting on mothers and fathers. It was found that 45.3 % of the adolescents confronted their mothers when they made a privacy invasion, the same number for fathers being 38.3 %.
Table 1.
Descriptive statistics and intercorrelations between study variables.
Correlations
Variable M (SD) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1. Depressive symptoms (A) 1.68 (.63) - -
2. Gender (A) boysa .18** --
3. Age (A) 14.60 (.86) .05 --
4. Privacy invasions (AM) 1.73 (.46) .47** .03 .02 - - 5. Privacy invasions (AF) 1.46 (.42) .46** .02 .03 .45 ** -- 6. Privacy invasions (P) 1.82 (.38) .09 - .03 - .02 .10 - .01 -- 7. Privacy invasion intent:
By accident (AM)
1.00 (1.77) .04 .10 ** - .02 .05 .02 - .08 - - 8. Privacy invasion intent:
On purpose (AM)
2.02 (2.50) .12 ** .10 ** - .08 ** .27 ** .21 ** - .02 .11 ** 9. Privacy invasion intent:
Both (AM)
1.01 (1.75) .17 ** .13 ** .07 * .24 ** .17 ** - .04 .19 ** 10. Privacy invasion intent:
By accident (AF)
.81 (1.83) .06 .03 .02 .10 ** .13 ** - .16 * .54 ** 11. Privacy invasion intent:
On purpose (AF)
1.36 (2.39) .08 * .03 .07 * .16 ** .31 ** - .04 .06 12. Privacy invasion intent:
Both (AF)
.70 (1.69) .15 ** .08 * .05 .20 ** .28 ** - .01 .13 ** 13. Privacy invasion response
(AM)
.01 - .03 .06 .09 .10 *
.03 - .04 14. Privacy invasion response
(AF) - .02 - .07 .05 .07 .15 ** - .10 - .04 15. Depressive symptoms (P) 1.75 (.26) - .07 .03 - .02 .12 * .07 .03 .00 Table 1 (continued). Correlations Variable 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
8. Privacy invasion intent: On purpose (AM)
- -
9. Privacy invasion intent: Both (AM)
.16 ** - -
10. Privacy invasion intent: By accident (AF)
.13 ** .22 **
- -
11. Privacy invasion intent: On purpose (AF)
.59 ** .15 ** .14 **
- -
12. Privacy invasion intent: Both (AF) .15 ** .57 ** .17 ** .16 ** -- 13. Privacy invasion Response (AM) .11 ** .05 .04 .15 ** .02 -- 14. Privacy invasion response (AF) .01 ,01 - .02 .01 .01 .69 ** -- 15. Depressive symptoms (P) .07 .07 - .04 .00 - .01 - .09 - .10
Note. (A) = adolescent, (AM) = adolescent report on mother, (AF) = adolescent report on father, (P) = parent report.
aModal response
Table 2.
Adolescent perception of parental intent for privacy invasions.
Mother Father Response category n M SD n M SD On purpose 592 2.02 2.49 592 1.36 2.39 Both 592 1.01 1.75 592 .70 1.69 By accident 592 1.00 1.77 592 .80 1.83 Table 3.
Adolescent response to parental privacy invasions.
Percentages
Variable Mother Father
1. Confront 45.3 % 38.3 %
2. Induce guilt 15.4 % 13.8 %
3. Evade 11.0 % 11.3 %
Table 4.
Results of regressions examining adolescent depressive symptoms as a function of parent privacy invasions.
Models b SE beta t R2/R2Δ
Adolescent report on maternal invasions
Step 1 .14**
Intercept 1.73 .33 5.33 **
Adolescent gender 0.23 .05 .38 4.72 **
Adolescent age 0.04 .06 .06 0.75
Parent depressive symptoms - 0.08 .18 - .03 -0.42
Step 2 .11**
Mother privacy invasions .57 .12 .34 4.42 **
Step 3 .00
Gender x invasions .06 .12 .04 .48
Age x invasions .09 .14 .05 .68
Adolescent report on paternal invasions
Step 1 .14**
Intercept 1.62 .32 5.08 **
Adolescent gender .22 .05 .37 4.56 **
Adolescent age .06 .06 .09 1.08
Parent depressive symptoms - .03 .18 - .01 -.15
Step 2 .08**
Father privacy invasions .42 .12 .28 3.51 **
Step 3 .03
Gender x invasions - .21 .13 - .14 -1.60
Age x invasions - .14 .15 - .09 -.94
Parent report on privacy invasions
Step 1 .14**
Intercept 1.7 .32 5.27 **
Adolescent gender .23 .05 .38 4.70 **
Adolescent age .04 .06 .05 .62
Parent depressive symptoms - .06 .18 - .03 -.31
Step 2 .00
Parent report on privacy invasions .09 .13 .06 .74
Step 3 .03
Gender x invasions .04 .13 .02 .28
Age x invasions - .32 .16 - .16 -1.98
Discussion
We aimed to examine the potential relationship between perceived parental privacy invasions and adolescent depressive symptoms. Furthermore, we compared adolescents’ reports on the frequency of mothers’ and fathers’ privacy invasions to better understand the association. Additionally, we wanted to further explore the concept of parental privacy invasions by studying adolescents’ perceptions of their parents’ intent and adolescents’ response to these parenting practices.
Regarding our first research question, the results indicated that a higher frequency of perceived parental privacy invasions, independent of adolescent age, adolescent gender, and parental depressive symptoms, predicted higher levels of adolescent depressive symptoms. This supported our hypothesis and was consistent with previous research examining privacy invasions as adolescents’ impressions of parents’ behaviors (e.g., Hale et al., 2007). However, we did not find this association for parents’ reports of privacy invasions. We can only
speculate as to why. As the parents who responded most likely were high functioning, the lack of results could be the result of variance restriction.
Adolescents perceived differences in their parents’ privacy invasions. Specifically, they reported mothers invaded privacy more than fathers. As information on parent gender was not available, we were unable to determine if parent reports match or diverge from the adolescents’, and it was, in other words, not possible to pair adolescents with their parents. However, our results add new information, suggesting that like research on psychological control, mothers engage in intrusive behaviors more than fathers (Barber, 2002).
It would be interesting to find out if reporters do match, as it is possible that parents may be covertly invading their adolescents’ privacy, as described in Hawk et al. (2016). For example, parents might enter the adolescents’ room, search their belongings, or enter their social media accounts without the adolescents’ knowledge. Six out of nine items used in this
study to measure behaviors included in the concept of privacy invasions—directed at the adolescent—are indeed behaviors that could take place without the adolescent noticing or ever knowing, for example, items included parents having “gone into your room when you were not around?”, “read things you wrote for yourself (e.g., your diary) without your
permission?”, and “checked what you have in your bag without asking first?”, to name a few. Yet, a very important part of examining the relationship between parental privacy invasions and adolescent depressive symptoms—or the association between any parenting behavior and outcomes related to adolescent health and adjustment—is adolescents’ own perception of the parenting behavior being studied (Kakihara & Tilton-Weaver, 2009). However, it is important to also note that privacy invasions taking place without the adolescent’s awareness, in Hawk et al. (2016) defined as “snooping”, is associated with impairment in the parent-adolescent relationship, and youths’ internalizing and externalizing behaviors (Hale et al., 2007; Hawk et al., 2016; Petronio & McDaniel, 1992b as cited in Petronio, 1994). Therefore, it was important to collect reports from both adolescents and parents, as was done in the present study, especially when considering covert privacy
invasions and their negative impact on the parent-adolescent relationship (Hawk et al., 2016). Furthermore, the correlations between adolescents’ reports on maternal and paternal privacy invasions, respectively, and parental reports on privacy invasions were
non-significant. It could be speculated, then, that apart from the fact that the characteristics of the data did not allow comparisons between adolescents and their own parents, these
non-significant findings also could be partly explained by covert privacy invasions.
Although our results using adolescents’ reports are consistent with previous research, we suggest that future research examine adolescents’ perception of privacy invasions being made without their knowledge or presence. That is, the items could be worded more
invading their privacy without their presence. As these are interpretations, rather than reports of actual behaviors, this is an unstudied aspect of privacy invasions that could contribute to an improved understanding of privacy invasions.
It is also possible that the results obtained might be better explained by a third, moderating variable, or potential mediators not examined in this study. Reflecting further upon the association demonstrated between parental privacy invasions and adolescent depressive symptoms, family relationships naturally becomes a subject of concern. Parental privacy invasions negatively affect the quality of the relationship between adolescent and parent, and overall family satisfaction (Ledbetter & Vik, 2012; Petronio, 1994). Noting that relationships within the family are essential for adolescents’ psychological well-being (Steinberg, 2001), it is possible that parent-adolescent relationship quality, and both
adolescents’ and parents’ satisfaction with their relationships, might in fact be a confounding variable, not addressed in the present study. That is, the association between parental privacy invasions and adolescent depressive symptoms found in this study could be explained by low parent-adolescent relationship quality. Thus, the results obtained could be further explored, explained, and understood by including a measurement of the parent-adolescent relationship in future research on the concept of privacy invasions. This would provide the possibility of statistically controlling whether poor parent-adolescent relationships predict both privacy invasions and adolescents’ depressive symptoms.
Furthermore, our result regarding gender and age differences does not support our preceding speculations. It was theorized that the link between perceived privacy invasions and depressive symptoms would be stronger for older adolescents than younger, and that the association between perceived privacy invasions and depressive symptoms would be stronger for boys than for girls. Our findings do not show any gender or age differences in the
possible that we did not find the age differences we expected because of a lack of variability in the sample. Smetana and Asquith (1994) showed that older adolescents expect more control over their personal and private domains, with the age of the adolescents participating ranging between 11 and 18 years. In our study, the age of the adolescents ranged between 12 and 16 years, and to find an age differences it might have been beneficial to include a wider age range.
With reference to adolescent gender differences, the results did not present any divergence. As boys generally tend to externalize more than internalize their distress (Leadbeater, Kuperminc, Blatt & Hertzog, 1999), it may be that privacy invasions are still more problematic for boys than for girls (Hawk et al., 2009), but not in terms of depressive symptoms. It may be that privacy invasions lead to more delinquent behavior, instead. Therefore, we suggest that future research on the concept include measures on externalizing behavior.
Our second research question focused on adolescents’ perception of parental intent behind invading their privacy. The research on this area is limited, but due to literature suggesting that intentional harm is more detrimental than accidental or unintentional harm (Ames & Fiske, 2013), we predicted that adolescents who perceived their parents’ invasions as intentional would experience higher levels of depressive symptoms. Supporting our hypothesis, there was a small but significant correlation between adolescent depressive symptoms and the perception of the parental privacy invasion as intentional. No conclusions about direction can be made due to the design of the study and the statistical analyses. The association could be interpreted in terms of perception of intentional parental privacy
invasions contributing to increase depressive symptoms in adolescents. It could also indicate that adolescents with depressive symptoms more often perceive parental privacy invasions as intentional. Depression is indeed associated with several cognitive biases, for example hostile
attribution bias, indicating a propensity to interpret an actor’s behavior as hostile (Smith, Summers, Dillon, Macatee & Cougle, 2016).
Having opened the area of adolescent perception of parental intent behind invading privacy for exploration, future research could focus more on this dimension. The items used required adolescents to choose whether the invasive behavior was on purpose, by accident, or sometimes both. These measures do not ask about the specific motive behind the invasion. We suggest further developing the measure of intent so that it captures whether the adolescent thinks that the parent invades their privacy regardless of them understanding that they are invading their privacy or not.
Finally, our last research question addressed adolescents’ responses to privacy invasions. To our knowledge, adolescent responses to privacy invasions and the potential connection to depressive symptoms has not been previously studied. This first, exploratory attempt to analyze the association between these variables did not produce any significant results. There are several plausible reasons for the lack of significant results. One possible explanation could be that there is no relationship. However, the possibility that these results are Type II errors should be explored, as our results are not consistent with previous research. Petronio (1994) found that adolescent defensive behaviors affect the adolescent’s view of the parent-adolescent relationship with especially, decreased trust and relational quality.
Ledbetter and Vik (2012) also stated that adolescents’ defensive strategies could have an impact on family satisfaction. This, together with research stating the importance of family relations for youths’ mental health (Steinberg, 2001) and adolescents’ secretive behavior being linked to adolescents’ depressive mood (Finkenauer et al., 2002; Frijns, Finkenauer, Vermulst & Engels, 2005) led us to question why our results were not significant.
One possibility is that our sample did not have enough variability in depressive symptoms or enough adolescents reporting elevated levels. This would contribute to lower
power, resulting in Type II error. It is also possible that the levels of response, rather than the type of response, should have been measured. Moreover, it is possible that when adolescents start trying to evade their parents’ invasions, they talk to peers rather than their parents. Disclosing to peers may act as a buffer, reducing the likelihood of negative outcomes (Vernberg, Ewell, Beery, Freeman & Abwender, 1995).
Looking at the distribution in percentages, adolescents more often confronted their mothers than their fathers (45.3 % of the adolescents confronted their mothers compared to 38.3% for fathers). We speculate that one possible explanation behind these results might be that adolescents feel more comfortable confronting, and arguing, with mothers in comparison to fathers. Indeed, research suggests that adolescents generally have more conflicts with mothers than fathers and during conflicts tend to respond to mothers with more openly-expressed responses compared to fathers (Hill, 1988; Zhao et al., 2015).
Finally, we speculate that the results obtained might have been affected by cultural issues. Even though psychological control is considered to be equally destructive regardless of cultural orientation (Soenens et al., 2012), the possibility still exists that the issue of parental privacy invasions might be regarded as less, or more, problematic among the adolescents and parents taking part in this study in comparison to other cultural settings. For example, if the parent invading privacy is viewed by the adolescent as an authority, or if relationships within the family are enmeshed, the behavior in fact might not be interpreted as intrusive (Kakihara & Tilton-Weaver, 2009). That is, even though some levels of privacy invasions are perceived as highly intrusive, independently of cultural background (Soenens et al., 2012), the interpretation and responses to invading behaviors might differ across cultures. However, other research on adolescents’ perception of parental psychological control
these differences extend to privacy invasions. Thus, we caution against over-generalizing our results to non-Swedish populations.
Limitations and Strengths
As would be expected, our study had weaknesses and strengths. First and foremost, the results obtained in this study need to be interpreted with caution due to the cross-sectional design. This makes it impossible to draw any conclusions about potential causality or the direction of the relationship between the variables (Kazdin, 2014). For example, the
association that was observed between parental privacy invasions and adolescent depressive symptoms could be interpreted in terms of the perception of parental privacy invasions
contributing to increased levels of adolescent depressive symptoms. It could also indicate that adolescents already experiencing depressive symptoms have a higher tendency to perceive privacy invasions. Additionally, it is plausible that parents of adolescents with depressive symptoms tend to invade their privacy more than parents of adolescents without any signs of depressive symptoms. It is imperative, then, to examine these associations longitudinally, and where possible, with experimental designs.
Second, the results might have been influenced by possible selection effects, that is, adolescents and parents taking part in the study might significantly differ from adolescents and parents choosing not to take part. Kazdin (2014) underlines how individuals that
volunteer to participate in a study tend to differ from individuals not taking part. For instance, volunteers, compared to non-volunteers, tend to be better educated, have a higher
occupational status, higher intelligence, be more altruistic and less authoritarian (Kazdin, 2014). It is very possible that the parents who participated in our study might differ in their parenting behaviors compared to parents who did not participate. Furthermore, children whose parents consent to their children taking part in a study are also found to be more sociable and less aggressive (Kazdin, 2014). Also, when looking at this particular study,
reviewing the descriptives, there is range restriction in several sample characteristics. For example, we are missing both parents and adolescents with higher levels of depressive symptoms. Parents who took part in our study, who gave passive assent for their adolescents to participate, and adolescents who actually are present in school probably, in comparison, are better functioning individuals. These issues could affect both internal and external validity. With respect to internal validity, the range restriction likely reflects selection bias, but probably only result in weakened statistical associations. Therefore, we interpret the non-significant findings as Type II error. With respect to external validity, replication with other samples, particularly those with more varied ethnicity, would help determine how much we can generalize to others.
Comparisons between mothers’ and fathers’ reports were not possible as the information on which parent reported was not consistently gathered. Future studies will benefit from collecting data from identified mothers and fathers so that it is possible to know if results obtained from adolescents’ reports converge with those of their parents.
Despite these weaknesses, the data had several strengths, including self-reports from adolescents on their depressive symptoms and their reports on their parents’ privacy
invasions. Adolescents are important sources of this information and their perceptions of their parents’ behavior affect their health and adjustment (Kakihara & Tilton-Weaver, 2009).
Another strength is the information about concrete parenting behaviors, from both adolescents and parents, as well as data on adolescents’ perceptions of their parents’ intentions and their own reactions. It is also a strength to have information on parents’ depressive symptoms, which allowed us to statistically control known links between parent and child depressive symptoms.
Implications for Future Research
Beyond studying these issues longitudinally and with reports from identified mothers and fathers, there are other ways that this research can be extended. We pointed out several times that the quality of the parent-child relationship could suffer as a result of privacy
invasions and that this might be the process by which privacy invasions harm adolescents. We suggest future work examine the parent-child relationship as a mediating variable.
Furthermore, we know of no research examining how privacy invasions are affected by rapid technological development. As adolescents spend a good portion of their free time online, we suggest that future work consider this and include items measuring digital privacy invasions. These could include invasions through social media and technology that allows parents tracking their adolescents’ physical whereabouts. This will allow researchers to understand how technology affects the way parents and adolescents view privacy boundaries, contributing further to the field.
Finally, we believe more qualitative studies on privacy invasions are warranted. We suggest broadening the understanding of adolescents’ perceptions of parental intentions behind invading their privacy. This could be helpful in further developing measurements for quantitative research that could contribute to an even better understanding of the role of adolescents’ perception of parental intent and the association with adolescents’ depressive symptoms. Furthermore, since our non-significant findings on the associations between adolescent responses to parental privacy invasions and adolescent depressive symptoms was non-consistent with previous research, we suggest that this area should be explored further since our results might have been affected by Type II error.
Unfortunately, there was not enough variation in the sample to examine the relationship between privacy invasions and depressive symptoms in different family
as examining family constellations where the adolescent have more than two active caregivers.
Conclusions
The present study aimed to explore the association between adolescents’ perception of parental privacy invasions and adolescent depressive symptoms. The results obtained show that there indeed is an association between parental privacy invasions and adolescent
depressive symptoms. The patterns of these results indicate that privacy invasions should be added to Barber’s (2002) original definition of parental psychological control. Moreover, the results indicated that privacy invasions are not as harmful when adolescents perceive that they are unintentional.
We suggest that future research examines, and hopefully determines, direction and causality of the relationship demonstrated in the current study. Additionally, we acknowledge that potential cultural differences, a wider spectrum of family constellations, and
technological advancements deserve to be taken into consideration to further contribute to the understanding of psychological control and its implications for adolescent health and
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