SYMMETRIES AND ASYMMETRIES IN PLANNING INTERACTIONS OF MOTHER-DAUGHTER DYADS

The contribution aims at the description of verbal interactions betwee n mothers and adolescent daughters in a planning task, Individuation t heoretic notions were considered to categorize and analyze the utteran ces. It was hypothesized that mother-daughter relationships during ado lescence are characterized by complementarity as well as by reciprocit y. If features of relationship quality are manifested in terms of beha vior in social interactions, complementarity should be indicated by an asymmetry of interactional behaviors whereas reciprocity should be in dicated by symmetry. 80 mothers and their adolescent daughters (ages 1 1-20) participated in interactions elicited by a planning task. Based on literal transcripts, units of the conversations were identified and coded according to 14 codes based on an instrument introduced by Grot evant & Cooper (1985) which was constructed within an individuation th eoretic framework. Two aspects of asymmetry were analyzed: (a) uneven distribution of frequencies of a given code for mothers and daughters; (b) differences in contingencies of responses to partners' initiative s. As to the first aspect, findings mostly pointed to asymmetry, namel y maternal dominance. As to the second aspect, the data rather suggest ed a symmetrical relationship. Cluster analyses served to determine gr oups varying in terms of symmetry. The most numerous group was charact erized by clearly symmetrical patterns of mother-daughter interactions . The dyads of the clusters, though, could not be discriminated by que stionnaire variables measuring the quality of relationship. The result s largely show that theoretical notions of the quality of parent-child relationships during adolescence are a useful tool to describe verbal interactions.