Avoidance among adolescents in conversations about their parents’ relationship: Applying the Theory of Motivated Information Management

Abstract

Awareness of the importance of avoidance in parent-child interactions has grown exponentially in the past decade. This investigation applies the Theory of Motivated Information Management (W. Afifi & Weiner, 2004) to better understand adolescents’ avoidance in conversations with a parent about the parents’ relationship. Because of the known impact of divorce on parent-adolescent conversations, we also compare divorced and nondivorced families on their experience of these interactions. One-hundred and twelve parent-adolescent dyads, divided almost equally between divorced and non-divorced families, participated in the investigation. Results generally support the utility of TMIM in this context and expand our knowledge of parent-adolescent relationships by showing important similarities and differences between divorced and nondivorced families’ experience of these interactions.