Exotic enterprise no more? Adolescent reports of family and parenting processes from youth in four countries

The current investigation cross-nationally examined the relationship between adolescent reports of family or parenting processes and a series of developmental outcomes in a sample of adolescents (N = 8,417) from Hungary, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States. Based on confirmatory factor analyses and tests of scalar equivalence, results suggest that the Adolescent Family Process Measure (AFP), which assesses maternal and paternal closeness, support, monitoring, communication, conflict, and peer approval, was valid and reliable for males, females, middle adolescents, and late adolescents in all four national contexts. In addition, based on model-free LISREL analyses, findings suggested that the relationships between these family processes and measures of adolescent externalizing (alcohol use, drug use, school misconduct, and total deviance) and internalizing (anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and low well-being) behaviors were similar cross-nationally. Findings are discussed in terms of their importance for the conceptualization and measurement of family and parenting processes.