Family Influences on Adolescent Development

Abstract

For most youth, the family remains the primary arena of social influence and security, both for fostering positive and negative consequences. The purpose of this chapter, in turn, is to provide an overview of the most prominent aspects of diverse family forms that influence the development of both prosocial and problematic outcomes by adolescents. Based on current social science research and theory, a complex array of family structural variations (i.e., family socioeconomic standing, poverty, maternal employment, divorce, remarriage, and the presence of siblings), parental styles, dimensions of parental behavior, parent-adolescent conflict, and interparental (or marital) conflict have been identified as some of the factors that influence adolescent development. Before we delineate these influences, the process of socialization within families, the concept of family system, and the nature of socialized outcomes in the young (i.e., adolescent social competence or problem behaviors) will be described. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)