Latent profiles of adolescents' relationships with parents and siblings: Associations with emotional and behavioral responses during the COVID-19 pandemic

Yingying Tang; Yingmiao Shao; Ting He; Yulong Wang; Stephen P Hinshaw; Xiuyun Lin

doi:10.1007/s12144-022-03959-2

Latent profiles of adolescents' relationships with parents and siblings: Associations with emotional and behavioral responses during the COVID-19 pandemic

Curr Psychol. 2022 Dec 16:1-12. doi: 10.1007/s12144-022-03959-2. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Yingying Tang¹, Yingmiao Shao², Ting He¹, Yulong Wang³, Stephen P Hinshaw⁴, Xiuyun Lin^{1

5}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Developmental Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875 China.
² Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875 China.
³ Department of Psychology, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, 410081 China.
⁴ Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA.
⁵ Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to identify the latent profiles of Chinese adolescents' family (parent-adolescent and sibling) relationships prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as associations between those profiles and adolescents' emotional and behavioral responses. A total of 2,305 adolescents from China aged between 10 and 18 years completed measures of parent-adolescent relationships, sibling relationships, and emotional and behavioral responses during the pandemic. Four profiles of family relationships were identified via latent profile analysis and categorized as Cohesive-Decline, Mild-Decline, Conflictual-Stable, and Indifferent-Stable. Adolescents with a Conflictual-Stable profile reported more emotional and behavioral responses compared to the other profiles. In contrast, adolescents with a Cohesive-Decline profile exhibited fewer emotional responses compared to the other profiles. Adolescents with a Mild-Decline profile had fewer emotional responses than those with an Indifferent-Stable profile. These results shed light on the patterns and consequences of family relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic and have substantial implications for interventions involving family relationships in the context of regular epidemic prevention and control.

Keywords: Behavioral responses; COVID-19; Emotional responses; Parent–adolescent relationships; Sibling relationships.

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