"Is there something I should know?": Topic avoidant responses in...

This exploratory study examined late-adolescents' responses to parents' direct requests for information about a topic that the adolescent was trying to avoid. Open-ended questions from 119 participants were analyzed using a grounded theory approach. From this analysis, a total of 12 topic avoidant

responses were found: deception, aggression, direct rejection, indirect rejection, assertiveness, disinterest, listening, terminating the conversation, discussing the topic, reassurance, crying, and discomfort. Consistent with Communication Boundary Management theory, this study revealed that when adolescents are faced with a parental privacy invasion, adolescents describe fortifying and renegotiating their boundaries, as well as creating boundary illusions. Implications for research on topic avoidance and Communication Boundary Management theory are discussed.

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Adolescence is a time when children begin to renegotiate their relationships with their parents (Noller, 1995). Adolescents take initial steps toward more autonomy and independence from their parents and strive to achieve more control of their own lives. During this developmental period, the influence of the family on the child tends to diminish (Larson & Richards, 1994) and this change may be manifested in the everyday talk between parents and adolescents. For example, adolescents may exclude parents from aspects of their lives by choosing to keep certain information private or by avoiding discussion of particular topics with their parents. This allows adolescents to control their personal private information but may leave parents saying, in the words of the 1980's group, Duran Duran, "Please, please tell me now. Is there something I should know?" (LeBon, Rhodes, Taylor, Taylor, & Taylor, 1983).

The developmental stage of adolescence occurs between the ages of 11 to 22 (Cobb, 1998) and late adolescence occurs between the ages of 18 to 22 years old (Marcia, 1966). The developmental stage of adolescence is clearly distinguished from childhood because of the physical, emotional, and cognitive changes in an individual (Erickson, 1963; Havighurst, 1952; Piaget, 1971). Due to the developmental differences between children and adolescents, communication between parents and adolescents tends to change dramatically as well. One such change is the tendency for adolescents to communicate less frequently with their parents (Noller & Bagi, 1985).

Marcia (1966) found that late adolescence is a time specifically focused on the formulation of identity. During identity formation, adolescents actively challenge the defined roles and goals that their parents have set for them (Erickson, 1966). As late adolescents experiment with various personal identities, some of these identities may conflict with their parents' values and goals. Conversations, and perhaps, disagreements, about these identities and related aspects of late adolescents' lives may interfere with the establishment of adolescents' personal identities. Thus, it may be necessary for adolescents to conceal, hide, or avoid discussing their fledgling identities with their parents. Indeed, while adolescents are in the process of identity formation, there is a decrease in the overall communication between adolescents and their parents (Larson & Richards, 1994; Noller & Bagi, 1995).

One of the ways late adolescents may choose to conceal personal information is through topic avoidance. Afifi and Guerrero (2000) defined topic avoidance as "when an individual decides not to disclose information on a particular topic to another person" (p. 166). Past research on topic avoidance in parent-adolescent communication focused on the types of topics avoided (Guerrero & Afifi, 1995a), the relationships in which topic avoidance occurs (Guerrero & Afifi, 1995b), and motivations underlying topic avoidance (Afifi & Guerrero, 2000). Taken together, this research is informative on the important preinteraction elements of topic avoidance.

In order to extend this line of work, the current study begins to investigate the process by which topic avoidance occurs in interactions between parents and late adolescents. Parents do not intuitively know when topics are to be avoided with their adolescents. Instead, determining which topics to avoid discussing and which topics to continue discussing even though adolescents might want to avoid those topics evolves through multiple interactions between parents and adolescents. The boundaries between topics that are off-limits and those that are acceptable to discuss are negotiated.

Another way to think about this issue is to relate topic avoidance to privacy concerns. For example, when a parent directly asks his/her adolescent about a topic that the adolescent would rather not discuss, this is an act of privacy invasion (Petronio & Harriman, 1989). The privacy invasion then forces the adolescent to deal with the invasion by discussing, to some extent, the particular issue or topic, even if it is to simply state that the adolescent does not want to discuss the topic, to change the topic of discussion, or to conceal the information. This communication between parent and adolescent allows for the dyad to negotiate boundaries of privacy. The current study, then, examined how late-adolescents respond to their parents when directly confronted with a topic that they desired to avoid. Communication Boundary Management is utilized as the theoretical underpinning for this investigation.

Communication Boundary Management & Topic Avoidance

In order for adolescents to keep personal information private, they may regulate their privacy by constructing boundaries. Petronio's (1991) Communication Boundary Management theory explains how individuals regulate privacy. She posits that individuals develop boundary structures which manage the risks of disclosing private information. Individuals feel that they own private information about themselves and need to control who has access to that information (Petronio, 1994). When individuals feel that they control the access to the personal information, this minimizes the risk to privacy (Petronio, 1991). Rules are developed that govern which topics they will disclose and to whom. Adolescents can, therefore, maintain their privacy and keep information boundaries intact through topic avoidance (Afifi & Guerrero, 2000). Communication Boundary Management theorists recognize the challenges associated with parent and adolescent struggles to deal with these relationship tensions (Afifi & Guerrero, 2000; Guerrero & Afifi, 1995a, 1995b). It is not surprising, then, that topic avoidance increases during this period (Guerrero & Afifi, 1995b). Specifically, Guerrero and Afifi (1995a) found that adolescents tend to avoid certain topics of conversation, such as negative life experiences and dating experiences, more than their preadolescent counterparts. Additionally, this study showed that children avoided discussing topics related to sexual experiences, friendships, dangerous activities, and negative events with their parents.

However, adolescents may not always be able to successfully avoid topics with their parents and this may cause boundary turbulence. Boundary turbulence occurs when there is stress on the boundary structure and this forces the person to renegotiate or fortify the boundary. Renegotiation of the boundary would entail moving the boundary by making it more closed or more open. Fortification of the boundary would involve reinforcing the current boundary. This process is known as boundary coordination (Petronio, 2000). One of the stresses on boundaries occurs when boundaries are invaded (Petronio, 2000). Petronio and Harriman (1989) found that parental privacy invasion was quite common in parent-adolescent relationships. In fact, 97% of the participants in their study reported that their parents invaded their privacy. Petronio and McDaniel (1992) found that parents invaded privacy by subversive invasion (e.g., eavesdropping, opening mail, and listening in on phone conversations), and by direct invasion (e.g., asking personal questions and giving advice).

Adolescents responded to privacy invasion through fortification by either confrontational tactics such as telling their parents to stay out of their room or to stop invading their privacy or by evasive tactics such as concealing personal belongings or using the phone outside of the home (Petronio & McDaniel, 1992). Although these responses to privacy invasion shed some light on how late-adolescents respond to boundary turbulence, it does not specifically examine how adolescents respond to parents direct requests for information about topics that the adolescents are actively avoiding. Thus, this study seeks to discover the ways late-adolescents respond to their parents' direct requests for information about topics they are avoiding by posing the following research questions:

RQ1: How do adolescents respond to parents' direct requests for information about topics that adolescents are actively avoiding?

RQ2: How frequently do adolescents use each of the topic avoidant responses?

METHOD AND RESULTS

Participants

Participants were recruited from introductory speech communication classes offered at a large university in the Pacific. These classes are designed for incoming first year students and attract a wide variety of majors. We chose a college-aged sample for several reasons. First, they fall into the developmental period of late-adolescence (18 to 22 years old). Second, according to Marcia (1966) late-adolescents are in the throes of identity formulation. This is a period when adolescents are trying to differentiate themselves from their parents' beliefs about who they are and, overall, trying to renegotiate their relationship with their parents (Noller, 1995). At this time, adolescents will experiment with identities that may contradict their parents' beliefs and value system. Thus, it may become necessary for adolescents to avoid discussing their fledgling identities and the behaviors associated with those identities with their parents.

Because we were interested in adolescents and their communication with their parents, students were asked if they met the following criteria before they were allowed to participate: (a) be 18 years of age, (b) be financially dependent on their parents, (c) have parents who live in Hawaii, and (d) see or talk to their parents regularly. Students earned extra credit for their participation in this study.

A total of 119 late adolescents, 48 (40%) males and 71 (60%) females, completed the questionnaire. The average age of the participants was 18.92 years (SD = 1.11 years). The ethnic background of the sample was diverse with 30 (25%) Japanese, 27 (23%) mixed ethnicity, 22 (19%) Caucasians, 16 (13%) Chinese, 11 (9%) Filipino, 8 (7%) Korean, and 5 (4%) who classified themselves as "other".

The majority of participants reported on their relationships with their mothers (73%), and a smaller percentage reported on relationships with their fathers (21%) and other parental figures (6%). Daughters most frequently reported on their relationship with their mothers (46%), followed by sons who reported on their relationship with their mothers (32%), daughters who reported on their relationship with their fathers (13%), and sons who reported on their relationship with their fathers (9%). On average adolescents saw or spoke with their parents 20.02 days in a month (SD = 10.31 days).

A majority of adolescents lived at home (51%) or in a dorm (37%), while a few indicated that they lived in an apartment (10%). Two did not indicate where they lived. Most participants came from traditional two-parent households (75%) while a minority came from single parent (15%) and step-family households (3%). Six percent of the sample specified they had some other household arrangement.

Parent-Adolescent Communication Survey (1)

In addition to reporting on basic demographic information, adolescents were asked to "recall the most recent time when your parent brought up a topic you did not want to discuss and your parent still pursued the topic with you. So you had to discuss this topic with your parent to some degree (briefly or for a while)." These instructions were provided in order to elicit a range of responses for dealing with this demand (to include adolescents who attempt to completely avoid a topic by explicitly or implicitly stating this to their parents to adolescents who ultimately discussed the topic fully with their parents). These recollections were of events that took place approximately 3 months ago (SD = 7.32 months).

Adolescents were asked to classify these topics according to Guerrero and Afifi's (1995a, 1995b) categories of topics that are commonly avoided. Based on responses in the "other" category, we also coded for topics that dealt with school-related issues (e.g., discussing plans for summer school, discussing how the selection of a major affects career plans, and discussing going to a local college rather than a college in a different state). Participants reported avoiding topics about relationship issues (20%), school (14%), dating experiences (16%), negative life experiences (14%), friendships (8%), sexual experiences (8%), dangerous behavior (7%), and other (13%). Finally, participants were asked to describe, in detail, what was said, how it was said, and what was done when parents brought up topics they would rather not discuss but had to respond to a certain extent.

Development of Response Categories and Coding Process

Following a grounded theory approach, open coding was used to provide a sense of the range of information available in the data. The responses given by participants were repeatedly read, then both researchers independently identified and labeled the types of responses that occurred. Through discussion, a total of 12 response categories to topic avoidance were generated. Next, the researchers coded a subset of the data using the 12 response typology to determine the utility of the classification system for capturing the nuances in the data and reconciled discrepancies in classification through discussion. The response typology fit the data so the researchers each coded all of the data using the 12 response typology. The estimated reliability using Scott's (1955) Pi formula for each of the response categories was adequate. The estimated reliabilities for each response category were: "deception" (.95), "aggression" (.95), "terminating the conversation" (.98), "discussing the topic" (.88), "indirect rejection" (.86), "assertiveness" (.98), "reassurance" (.83), "direct rejection" (.92), "listening to the parent" (.97), "disinterest" (.98), "discomfort" (1.0), and "crying" (1.0). Any resulting discrepancies in coding were resolved through discussion. Although the reliability estimates are reported for each category, it should be noted that the each participant's description of their response to their parents' inquiry regarding an avoided topic was coded for whether it contained each of the 12 response categories. The vast majority of the responses reported by adolescents exhibited several of the response categories. In other words, adolescents used a combination of responses such as deception and aggression or disinterest, listening, and terminating the conversation.

Response Categories

Deception. Deception, which included concealing and omitting information, was the most frequent response used by adolescents in this study. Adolescents reported using deception as a response 44.5% of the time. For example, one respondent, when her parent asked her if she was still thinking about her ex-boyfriend, responded "I told her I wasn't thinking about him. (I lied) b/c I knew how much she did not approve of him. In reality, he consumes my thoughts everyday. Another individual reported that "I just said what they wanted to hear."

Aggression. Nineteen percent of the respondents reported that they used aggression in response to their parents' privacy invasion. Aggression included adolescents yelling, being sarcastic, irritated, angry, or annoyed with their parent. For example, one respondent said, "In an annoyed voice I said 'no, I know that by now. I'm not stupid." Another individual said, "I was defensive. I was probably short with her. I don't think I told her everything because she made me mad."

Terminating the conversation. Terminating the conversation was nonverbal strategies used by respondents to end the conversation. These nonverbal responses included leaving the room, leaving the house, hanging up the phone on the parent, walking away from the parent, and avoiding eye contact. Adolescents reported using the terminating the conversation response 17.6% of the time.

Discussing the topic. For this response category, adolescents discussed the topic with their parents truthfully without using any of the avoidant strategies found in this study. Only 17.6% of the respondents reported that they discussed the topic with their parent without using any topic avoidant responses.

Indirect rejection. The indirect rejection responses were those when adolescents let their parent know that they did not want to discuss the topic without directly saying so. These responses included postponement of the topic, changing the subject, saying "none of your business," and metacommunication. Postponement included statements such as "This isn't the best time and that I would discuss it later" and "I'll comment on that after finals are finished." An example of changing the topic is "Isn't there something else we can talk about?" Metacommunication was defined as talk about talk. For instance, one respondent told her parent to "Just be quiet" and another said "I told her to stop nagging and that yelling is not something I want to hear when I first wake up in the morning." Adolescents reported using indirect strategies 16% of the time.

Assertiveness. Assertiveness was used by adolescents 16% of the time. It was defined as when adolescents spoke to their parent in a manner that was respectful, calm, and firm. For example one respondent reported, "Calmly yet persistently told her that I did not want to stay home for the entire summer and that I wanted to be taking courses."

Reassurance. Reassurance included topic avoidant responses that assured the parent that the adolescent was making good decisions and that the parent should not worry about the adolescent. For example, "In response to my parents concern I told them that I have and always will be a happy child and that they really shouldn't worry about me." Another respondent told her parent, "... they don't have to worry, because I know what to do and I know that if I did have sex then they would be disappointed in me." Respondents reported using this strategy 10.9% of the time.

Direct rejection. The direct rejection response to topic avoidance occurred when adolescents told their parent that they "did not want to talk about it" or they "did not want to discuss it." The direct rejection response was utilized 8.4% of the time.

Listening to the parent. This response occurred when the respondent just let their parent talk, and they listened to what the parent had to say. Typically, the adolescents said nothing or just nodded their head occasionally. One individual reported, "I basically just heard him talk. I knew what he was going to talk about. He talked, I nodded (as in agreeing) and he talked. I had nothing to say." Listening to the parent occurred 5.9% of the time.

Disinterest. The response of disinterest occurred when adolescents expressed that they really did not care about the topic or that the topic was only of small concern. For example, one respondent reported "I really could give less of a damn what my ex was doing but my mother kept pursuing the issue." Another said "whatever I don't care." Respondents reported disinterest 5.9% of the time.

Discomfort. Adolescents reported that they felt uncomfortable when discussing the topic they had previously been avoiding with their parent 4.2% of the time. For instance, "I felt uncomfortable so I started to laugh a little then because I didn't want him to think less of me."

Crying. Respondents reported crying when their parent asked them about the topic they had been avoiding 2.5% of the time. One individual reported, "I said that they can't keep making choices for me and that they were wrong for doing so, I was very emotionally distraught and ended up leaving the restaurant crying."

DISCUSSION

Although past research on topic avoidance is informative about what types of topics are avoided and relationships in which topic avoidance occurs, this study sheds some light on the negotiation process of topic avoidance. This study shows that when adolescents must respond to parents broaching topics they would rather avoid, adolescents communicate in a variety of ways. They ranged from discussing the topic truthfully or deceptively, rejecting discussion of the topic directly or indirectly, or terminating the interaction, managing the discussion through reassurance, listening, and signaling disinterest, as well as conveying an assortment of emotions from crying, discomfort, assertiveness, or aggressiveness. In this exploratory investigation, we found that only a small percentage of adolescents directly discussed an avoidant topic with the parent while the overwhelming majority utilized other responses to avoid the topic such as deception, direct and indirect rejection, and aggression. Clearly, there are many ways that late adolescents handle direct requests for information about topics that the adolescent would rather not discuss.

Topic Avoidance

This study expands our understanding of topic avoidance in parent-adolescent relationships. Past research on topic avoidance was primarily focused on why adolescents are motivated to avoid topics and which topics are avoided. This line of research is particularly helpful in understanding topic avoidance when the adolescent is the initiator of the avoidance (i.e., when adolescents do not bring up a topic they would rather not discuss with their parents). However, the current investigation begins to offer insight in to those other instances when the adolescent is not the initiator but is responding, in some fashion, to topics he/she would rather avoid. In this case, the adolescent does not broach the topic, but the parent does.

The findings from this preliminary investigation should be helpful to parents because many of the topics identified by Guerrero and Affifi (1995a, 1995b) are important for parents to be aware of, such as sexual experience and negative life experience. It would be helpful for parents to understand how their adolescents avoid sensitive topics.

Communication Boundary Management and Deception

This negotiation of topic avoidance is similar to Petronio's (1991) boundary coordination. Petronio (2000) argued "boundary coordination requires negotiation of ownership, rule formation or rule usage" (p. 43). Furthermore, Petronio (1994) argued that when boundaries experience stress, such as a privacy invasion, then the boundaries are fortified or renegotiated. The current study showed that when late-adolescents were faced with a direct request for information about a topic they would rather avoid, renegotiating boundaries or disclosing personal information to their parents occurs infrequently. More often adolescents reported fortifying their boundaries by direct and indirect rejection, aggression, and nonverbal responses to terminate the conversation. These type of responses tell the parent where the boundary lies and reinforces that boundary. Additionally, it allows the adolescent to avoid the topic and conceal personal information.

This study shows that a third option frequently occurs: deception. Deception neither fortifies nor renegotiates a boundary but instead seems to act as pseudo-self-disclosure. By using deceptive tactics, adolescents do not disclose any information they do not want their parent to know, but adolescents maintain the appearance of being open with private information. Deception may be seen as a win-win situation for adolescents. They can keep personal information private and immediately avoid potential conflicts that revealing or not revealing the information may cause. However, by the adolescent discussing the topic in a deceptive manner, the parent may perceive that the topic is within the boundaries to discuss and future discussion may occur about this topic. This may lead to more deception or renegotiation/fortification.

Additionally, the use of deception in boundary coordination expands upon the Communication Boundary Management theory. Boundary coordination assumes that when a privacy invasion occurs we will either be open and forthcoming with the requested or information or be closed and choose not to self-disclose the private information. Deception creates a boundary illusion where the recipient of the deception believes the boundary has been expanded when it has not. Using deceptive tactics gives the illusion of openness and sharing while keeping the pre-existing boundary structure intact.

Limitations and Future Directions

Although interesting, the findings from this research should be interpreted with caution because questionnaires were used to obtain the retrospective accounts of late adolescents who were attending college. Future work should replicate the 12 response category system with interviews or have adolescents and parents attempt to discuss a topic the adolescent would rather avoid in a laboratory setting. Future investigations could also examine which topic avoidant responses are associated with parents adhering to adolescents' communication boundary. This would provide greater insight into whether parents are able to detect topic avoidance and how parents deal with and react to adolescents' topic avoidance. Additionally, future studies could research how the use of deception to avoid discussing topics affects boundary fortification, boundary turbulence, and the type of fit (i.e., satisfactory, overcompensatory, deficient, and equivocal fit) between parents' expectations for disclosure and adolescents' reactions to those expectations. Finally, future research needs to examine if the choice of avoidant topic impacts the adolescents' decision to renegotiate or fortify the boundary.

Conclusion

This study makes a valuable contribution to understanding the process of topic avoidance as well as how adolescents construct boundary structures with their parents. The nature of parent-adolescent communication is an understudied area in the field of communication. Typically, communication researchers group adolescents with children or focus solely on children. This paper illustrates that the parent-adolescent relationship is a salient communication context that is worthy of empirical investigation. This study extended Guerrero and Afifi's (1995a, 1995b) work on topic avoidance and Petronio's (1991, 1994, 2000) work on Communication Boundary Management theory to examine how adolescents strategically avoid discussing topics with their parents. Although communication decreases during adolescence, parents still play a vital role in their adolescent's development. Future research needs to be conducted into the nature of parent-adolescent communication because this would provide important insight into the parent-adolescent relationships for parents, family therapists, and child developmentalists.

ENDNOTES

(1.) This survey was a part of a larger study that examined how adolescents discussed sensitive issues with their parents. The portion of the study that is relevant to the current research dealt with how adolescents discussed topics they would rather avoid.

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Michelle A. Mazur (Ph.D., University of Oklahoma, 2001) is an Assistant Professor and Amy S. Ebesu Hubbard (Ph.D., University of Arizona, 1996) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Speech, University of Hawai'i at Manoa. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the National Communication Association's Annual Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, November 20-24, 2002. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Michelle A. Mazur, Department of Speech, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawai'i 96822. E-mail: mmazur@hawaii.edu