Heterogeneity and Change in Adolescents' Configurations of Disclosure and Concealment Strategies

The objective of this research was to evaluate the heterogeneity and change in the configuration of adolescents' information disclosure and concealment toward their parents, using a person-centered approach and considering different domains of social-cognitive domain theory.

Through a non-experimental, longitudinal design, 874 Chilean adolescents were surveyed in the first measurement (M_age = 15.02, SD = 1.54, 76.4% female). A latent class analysis was conducted to identify heterogeneity in adolescents' disclosure and concealment by issue; subsequently, a latent transition analysis modeled membership transitions over time.

For the younger adolescent, a class emerged that disclose information about all consulted issues (i.e., personal issues regarding activities, personal issues regarding interpersonal relationships and prudential issues), a second class that conceals information about all consulted issues, a third class that conceals information regarding personal issues that circumscribe interpersonal relationships, and a fourth class that conceals information about both types of personal issues. For the older adolescent, only three classes emerged: those who disclosed everything, those who concealed everything, and those who concealed only personal issues regarding interpersonal relationships. Most individuals showed a high probability of remaining in their original groups over time; however, adolescents concealing only interpersonal issues were the exception, showing a higher probability of transitioning into the disclosure group.

These results suggest adolescents share information with their parents to a certain extent, while also maintaining privacy regarding specific issues. These findings contradict the monotonic decline of disclosure during adolescence that has been reported by studies using a variable-centered approach.