Showcase of Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors (SOURCE)

Young Adults’ Similarity and Honesty with Their Mothers and Fathers

Richardson Ballroom – DiGiorgio Campus Center

We hypothesized that greater similarity would relate to more honesty with both mothers and fathers. Participants were 100 young adults (66% women; 49% Caucasian) with a mean age of 20.33 (SD = 2.79). Participants rated their personal agreement with 18 value statements. Participants were then asked to respond twice more to the same statements, answering as they thought their own mothers and fathers would. Next, participants responded twice to a published openness scale that assessed participants’ willingness to be honest with their mothers and fathers. Results supported our hypothesis. The more similar a young adult was to a particular parent, the more open and honest he or she was with that parent. Perhaps parents are more receptive to honesty when everyone agrees, or perhaps honest parent-child communication leads to agreement. Interestingly, young adults did not seem to believe that similarity drove their honesty, as young adults’ openness scores did not predict their similarity self-ratings. This perception of uniqueness may reflect young adults’ developmental task of solidifying their own identities. Similarity with fathers related to father-child closeness, whereas similarity with mother extended beyond the mother-child relationship by predicting less concern about being a disappointment and how flexible the young adults’ thinking was. Men reported being more influenced by their fathers, while African Americans reported being more influenced by their mothers. These data add a new perspective on how similarity with parents influences adolescent and young adult outcomes.