Mother-daughter communicative relationships during adolescence and early adulthood.

This thesis examined communication patterns of mothers and daughters of two age groups (adolescents, ages 12 through 16, 'n' = 24; and, young adults, ages 20 through 35, 'n' = 21). Mother-daughter dyads participated in discussions about five hypothetical issues and completed self-report measures of mother-daughter relationship conflict. Conversations were audiotaped and coded for rates of overlaps between speaking turns, simultaneous speech, and successful interruptions. It was hypothesized that there would be greater differences in the conversational styles of adolescent daughters and their mothers as compared to adult daughters and their mothers, and the magnitude of conversational style differences would be positively related to perceptions of relationship conflict. Results partially supported the hypotheses. The predicted differences in mothers and daughters conversation styles as a function of age were found. However, findings did not support the hypothesis that conversational style differences would predict perceptions of relationship conflict.