A longitudinal study of adolescent social relations and antisocial and prosocial behavior in a Chinese context

The relationships between parent-adolescent conflict and (a) adolescent ant isocial and prosocial behavior, (b) significant-others' influences on adole scent behavior, and (c) adolescents' relationships with the significant-oth ers were examined in 56 adolescents in a longitudinal study. Two waves of d ata based on questionnaires and interviews separated by two years were coll ected. Results showed that parent-adolescent conflict predicted antisocial behavior but not prosocial behavior across time. While parent-adolescent co nflict predicted adolescent antisocial behavior over time, adolescent antis ocial behavior did not predict parent-adolescent conflict longitudinally. E xcept the linkage between mother-adolescent conflict and peer influence, pa rent-adolescent conflict was generally unrelated to the influences of the s ignificant-others of adolescents. Some evidence on the mutual influences be tween mother-adolescent conflict and adolescents' relationships with the si gnificant-others over time was also found.