Contents lists available at ScienceDirectJournal of Adoles.docx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Adolescence
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/adolescence
Young adolescents’ responsiveness to sexual communication
with
their mother: Distinguishing diverse intentions
Heather A. Sears∗ , Brett S. Robinson1, E. Sandra Byers
Department of Psychology, University of New Brunswick, P.O.
Box 4400, Fredericton, New Brunswick, E3B 5A3, Canada
A R T I C L E I N F O
Keywords:
Responsiveness
Intentions
Sexual communication
Young adolescents
Mothers
A B S T R A C T
Introduction: It is unlikely that parents can have effective
sexuality discussions with their ado-
lescent if the adolescent is not responsive to their efforts. We
evaluated young adolescents’ in-
tentions of being responsive to sexual communication with their
mother and whether youths who
were likely, ambivalent, or unlikely to be responsive differed on
their characteristics, features of

previous sexual communication, and features of the mother-
adolescent relationship.
Methods: Participants were 259 Canadian adolescents (12–14
years; 53% girls) who received and
returned a survey by mail. They completed measures of
responsiveness intentions, expected
outcomes of sexual communication, extent of past sexual
communication, the frequency with
which mothers encouraged questions and provided information
about sexuality topics, open
communication, and mothers’ provision of warmth, structure,
and autonomy support.
Results: We found that 37% of adolescents were likely to be
responsive to sexual communication
with their mother, 34% were ambivalent, and 29% were unlikely
to be responsive. Youths’ re-
sponsiveness intentions were general rather than topic-specific.
A discriminant analysis showed
that only features of previous sexual communication separated
all three groups whereas specific
mother-adolescent relationship features (open communication
and structure) and one adolescent
characteristic (expected outcomes) separated the unlikely group
from the other groups.
Conclusions: Young adolescents' intentions of being responsive
to sexual communication from
their mother are diverse yet general in nature. Mothers'
engagement in sexual communication
appears essential for youths' openness to these discussions.
Enhancing specific mother-adolescent
relationship features and youths’ outcome expectations may
shift adolescents who are resistant to
sexuality discussions to being more sure.
1. Introduction

Communication between parents and their adolescents about
sexual health topics has the potential to be a win-win situation
for
both parties. For parents, sexual communication is an
opportunity to fulfill one of their acknowledged responsibilities
by providing
information that can prevent negative sexual outcomes and
sharing attitudes and values (Flores & Barroso, 2017; Jerman &
Constantine, 2010). For adolescents, sexual communication is
an opportunity to gain factual information and practical skills
from one
of their preferred sources of sexuality information (Baheiraei,
Khoori, Foroushani, Ahmadi, & Ybarra, 2014; Byers et al.,
2003a,
2003b; Pariera & Brody, 2018). However, in many families,
sexual communication occurs infrequently or not at all, and
when it does
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2020.02.006
Received 28 September 2019; Received in revised form 6
February 2020; Accepted 12 February 2020
∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (H.A. Sears).
1 BC Children's Hospital, Vancouver, British Columbia,
Canada.
Journal of Adolescence 80 (2020) 136–144
Available online 20 February 2020
0140-1971/ © 2020 The Foundation for Professionals in
Services for Adolescents. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights
reserved.
T

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occur, it often lacks depth, is narrow in scope, has a negative
tone, and takes place too late to maximize its potential benefit
(Beckett
et al., 2010; Evans, Widman, Kamke, & Stewart, 2019; Holman
& Koenig Kellas, 2018; Ritchwood et al., 2018; Widman,
Choukas-
Bradley, Helms, Golin, & Prinstein, 2014). This reflects, in
part, many parents' and many adolescents' discomfort during
their in-
teractions (Elliott, 2010; Grossman, Jenkins, & Richer, 2018;
Jerman & Constantine, 2010). Parents' and adolescents’
discomfort
discussing sexuality may also be evident in their responsiveness
during these conversations. Responsiveness involves a range of
behaviors that signal engagement, such as verbal participation,
listening, paying attention to what is being said, and asking and
answering questions (Romo, Nadeem, Au, & Sigman, 2004;
Whitaker, Miller, May, & Levin, 1999).
Studies of responsiveness in parent-adolescent sexual
communication have focused primarily on mothers, with both
mothers and
adolescents highlighting the importance of mothers'
responsiveness in this context (e.g., Holman & Koenig Kellas,
2018; Pluhar &

Kuriloff, 2004). Mothers' responsiveness during sexuality
discussions is related to more frequent sexual communication,
discussion of
more topics, less dominance by mothers during discussions, and
more engagement and less avoidance by the adolescent (Afifi,
Joseph, & Aldeis, 2008; Lefkowitz, Romo, Corona, Au, &
Sigman, 2000; Miller et al., 2009; Miller, Kotchick, Dorsey,
Forehand, &
Ham, 1998; Pluhar & Kuriloff, 2004). Interestingly, even
though adolescents' characteristics and engagement are viewed
as critical
aspects of these interactions (see DiIorio, Pluhar, & Belcher,
2003; Flores & Barroso, 2017; Jaccard, Dodge, & Dittus, 2002),
their
responsiveness (i.e., their behavior or intentions) has received
little attention. It appears, however, that adolescents’ lack of
response
or negative response (e.g., not listening, silence, dismissal,
contempt) can deter parent-adolescent sexual communication
(Elliott,
2010; Pluhar & Kuriloff, 2004; Rosenthal, Feldman, & Edwards,
1998). Nevertheless, some youths are positive about and
responsive
to these discussions (Grossman et al., 2018; Holman & Koenig
Kellas, 2018; Yowell, 1997).
In this study, we assessed young adolescents' responsiveness
intentions – that is, their plan to be responsive to sexual
commu-
nication with their mother. Too few adolescents reported on
their communication with their father to be considered. We
focused on
adolescents' responsiveness intentions rather than their past
responsiveness behavior for two reasons. First, assessing
adolescents'
responsiveness intentions allowed us to include youths living in

families where sexual communication was not occurring as well
as
youths who may be reluctant to disclose previous
unresponsiveness to their parent's sexual communication.
Second, we found no
previous research on youths' responsiveness intentions in this
context. Information about the responsiveness intentions of
young
adolescents provides important information for parents who are
initiating sexual communication or planning to introduce new
topics
for discussion against a backdrop of the normative increase in
parent-adolescent conflict and decline in parent-adolescent
warmth
experienced in many families during early adolescence
(Askelson, Campo, & Smith, 2012; Shanahan, McHale, Osgood,
& Crouter,
2007; Shearer, Crouter, & McHale, 2005).
1.1. Adolescents’ responsiveness to parent-adolescent sexual
communication
Researchers have found considerable heterogeneity in
adolescents' responsiveness to sexual communication with their
mother.
For example, Romo et al. (2004) conducted an observational
study of 11-to-16-year-old youths' responsiveness to their
mothers'
questions during sexuality discussions. They reported that, on
average, youths responded with low to moderate levels of
attentiveness
and verbal engagement, although scores on these two indices
indicated substantial variation across adolescents. Using
interviews
with adolescent girls (11–13 years) and their mother, Yowell
(1997) identified three groups who reported different types of

en-
gagement: actively engaged girls who were willing to
participate in sexual communication even when they had
different perspectives
from their mother; passively engaged girls who were willing to
participate in sexual communication to comply with their
mother's
expectation that these discussions take place; and avoidant girls
who shut down discussions with their mother largely because of
a
desire for privacy. Rosenthal et al. (1998) interviewed mothers
of 16-year-olds about their sexual communication with their
ado-
lescent and found that mothers' descriptions ranged from their
youth being interested and engaged to their youth being largely
uninterested and even dismissive to their youth not being
willing to have sexuality discussions. Finally, Grossman et al.
(2018)
interviewed parents twice about family sexual communication,
when their adolescent was in seventh grade and tenth grade
(20/23
parents were mothers). At both interviews, a majority of parents
indicated that their adolescent was engaged during sexuality
discussions; however, in the second interview compared to the
first interview, almost twice as many parents described their
youth's
avoidance or negative reaction to the discussions.
Together, these studies indicate that adolescents respond in
various ways to their mother's efforts to have sexuality
discussions,
with some youths open to and engaged in these conversations,
other youths avoiding or refusing to engage in these
conversations,
and still other youths responding in a more emotionally
tempered way with limited engagement and perceived by their

mother as
having little interest. We reasoned that this diversity in youths'
responses to sexuality conversations with their mother may
reflect, in
part, diverse intentions to be responsive given that individuals'
behavioral intentions are a predictor of their subsequent
behaviors
(Sheeran, 2002; Webb & Sheeran, 2006). We expected that
some adolescents would be more positive about having a
sexuality
discussion with their mother (i.e., be likely to be responsive),
some would be more negative (i.e., be unlikely to be
responsive), and
some would be ambivalent, unsure, or neutral about engaging in
such a discussion (i.e., be neither likely nor unlikely to be re-
sponsive). We used a categorical approach in our evaluation of
adolescents' responsiveness intentions to ensure that the results
provided information about youths who are ambivalent or
unsure about having sexuality discussions with their mother; the
possibly
unique characteristics of these youths would be overlooked
using a dimensional approach. We were particularly interested
in whether
the youths who indicated that they were neither likely nor
unlikely to be responsive to sexual communication with their
mother
would differ in various ways from those who are either open to
or resistant to these discussions given that it may be difficult to
infer
adolescents' ambivalence or hesitance about having sexuality
discussions from observations of them or during interactions
with them.
It is important to provide parents with realistic expectations
about youths' responsiveness intentions in order to reduce their
fears

H.A. Sears, et al. Journal of Adolescence 80 (2020) 136–144
137
about the likelihood of a negative response from their
adolescent and/or to allow them to take steps in increase their
adolescent's
responsiveness. Further, this information may inform future
research and intervention efforts aimed at promoting parent-
adolescent
sexual communication. Currently, we have no information on
the proportion of youths who are likely, unlikely, or ambivalent
about
being responsive to sexual communication with their mother or
about factors that are associated with diverse intentions to be
responsive. Our first goal was to examine the percentage of
young adolescents in this sample who fell into three
responsiveness
intentions groups: Likely to be Responsive, Ambivalent, and
Unlikely to be Responsive.
1.2. Factors expected to distinguish adolescents with diverse
responsiveness intentions
Our second goal was to identify factors that describe differences
among adolescents in the three responsiveness intentions
groups.
Frameworks for studying parent-adolescent sexual
communication (see Flores & Barroso, 2017; Jaccard et al.,
2002) and previous
studies (e.g., Klein, Becker, & Stulhofer, 2018; Ritchwood et
al., 2018; Schouten, van den Putte, Pasmans, & Meeuwesen,
2007) have
identified youth characteristics, the sexual communication

context, and the family context as potentially important
domains.
Therefore, we selected two adolescent characteristics (gender,
expected outcomes), three features of previous mother-
adolescent
sexual communication (the extent of communication, the
frequency with which mothers had encouraged questions and
provided
information about sexual health topics), and four features of the
mother-adolescent relationship (open mother-adolescent
commu-
nication, mothers' provision of warmth, structure, and autonomy
support) for evaluation. Researchers have not investigated
whether
these factors describe group differences in young adolescents'
intentions of being responsive to their mother's sexual
communication.
There is indirect support, however, for our selection of these
factors.
Adolescent characteristics. It is likely that young male and
female adolescents differ on their intentions of being responsive
to
sexual communication with their mother. Romo et al. (2004)
found that adolescent girls were more responsive than
adolescent boys
to their mothers' questions during sexuality discussions, and
Fasula and Miller (2006) reported that adolescent girls
perceived their
mother as more responsive during sexual communication than
adolescent boys. In addition, Rosenthal et al. (1998) reported
that
more mothers of adolescent girls than adolescent boys described
mutually interactive discussions about sexuality, although
Grossman
et al. (2018) found no gender difference in parents' reports of

their teenager's positive or negative responsiveness. We also
evaluated
youths' expected outcomes of being responsive to sexual
communication with their mother because, in general, more
positive ex-
pected outcomes of a behavior are linked to higher intentions
related to that behavior (Jaccard et al., 2002). Although
adolescents
may expect both positive (e.g., questions will be answered) and
negative (e.g., they will be embarrassed) outcomes from sexual
communication (Jaccard, Dittus, & Gordon, 2000), adolescents
who expect more positive outcomes engage in more sexual com-
munication with their mother and their father (Schouten et al.,
2007).
Features of previous mother-adolescent sexual communication.
By the time young adolescents are in middle school, at least
some of them have had sexual communication with their mother.
However, according to both mothers and youths, these con-
versations typically are not extensive and parents encourage
sexual health questions infrequently (Byers & Sears, 2012;
Foster, Byers,
& Sears, 2011; Holman & Koenig Kellas, 2018). The likelihood
of youths being responsive during future communication is
expected to
be related to these previous experiences, including the extent of
previous communication (i.e., depth or level of detail), the
frequency
with which their mother encouraged questions about sexual
health topics, and the frequency with which their mother
provided
information about sexual health topics (e.g., books, videos).
Parents who engage in these behaviors may show their
adolescent that
they have knowledge about and comfort with at least some
sexuality topics and an openness and ability to share this

information in a
way that is not intrusive or embarrassing. Young adults
identified an openness to questions as a strength of parents'
sexual com-
munication (Pariera & Brody, 2018), and the frequency with
which parents encouraged questions was the strongest predictor
of
young adolescents’ perception of higher quality sexuality
education by their parents (Foster et al., 2011). We also
assessed the
frequency with which mothers provided sexual health
information because we thought that mothers doing so may
reduce the dis-
comfort of both parties by providing a focus and helping them
prepare in advance for a discussion.
Features of the mother-adolescent relationship. Mother-
adolescent sexual communication is most likely to occur in the
context
of a positive mother-adolescent relationship. For example, more
open general communication has been associated with
adolescents'
more positive evaluation of their mother as a sex educator and
with caregivers', but not young adolescents', reports of more
com-
munication about sexual health topics and sensitive sex topics
(Feldman & Rosenthal, 2000; Ritchwood et al., 2018). In
addition,
parents' provision of warmth, structure, and autonomy support
have been related to parent-adolescent sexual communication, in
at
least some studies. For example, various markers of a positive
relationship (e.g., satisfaction, support) have been linked to
adoles-
cents' reports of more sexual communication and more frequent
sexual communication (Jaccard et al., 2000; Klein et al., 2018),

but
not consistently (e.g., Afifi et al., 2008). Mothers' provision of
structure during a sexuality discussion in the form of more
open-ended
questions, information, and feedback has been positively
associated with adolescents' level of engagement and desire for
additional
conversations (Mauras, Grolnick, & Friendly, 2012; Romo et
al., 2004). Parents' provision of autonomy support has been
linked to
more frequent sexual communication between parents and girls
over time (Klein et al., 2018), although autonomy support was
not
related concurrently to girls’ experience of sexuality
discussions (Mauras et al., 2012). We thought that each of these
relationship
features would contribute to a positive climate that would make
young adolescents more likely to be responsive to sexual com-
munication.
1.3. The current study
It is unlikely that parents can have effective sexuality
discussions with their adolescent if the adolescent is not
responsive to their
138
efforts. However, we know little about adolescents'
responsiveness to parent-adolescent sexual communication from
adolescents'
perspective and nothing about their intentions to be responsive

to these conversations. Therefore, we examined young
adolescents'
intentions of being responsive to sexual communication with
their mother. We generated three groups of youths (Likely to be
Responsive, Ambivalent, and Unlikely to be Responsive) and
developed two research questions. First, what proportion of
young
adolescents fall within each of the three groups? Second, do
adolescents' characteristics, features of previous sexual
communication
with their mother, and features of the mother-adolescent
relationship distinguish the three groups? We expected that the
Likely to be
Responsive group would be comprised of a higher proportion of
girls and that youths in this group would score higher than
youths in
the Unlikely to be Responsive group on all of the other factors
assessed. We did not make hypotheses about the proportion of
adolescents who would fall within each group or the position of
youths in the Ambivalent group relative to those in the other
two
groups given that there has been no research on adolescents’
responsiveness intentions.
2. Method
2.1. Participants and procedure
The participants were 259 Canadian adolescents (137 girls, 122
boys) who ranged in age from 12 to 14 years (M
(SD) = 12.97(.72)) and were enrolled in either grade 7 (51%) or
grade 8 (49%). A majority (70%) reported that they lived with
their
mother and father; 12% were living with a parent and
stepparent, and 18% were living with their mother on her own.

To recruit the sample, 683 survey packages were mailed to
parents who had participated in research conducted by our lab
in the
previous 12 months, all of whom had a young adolescent.
Parents were asked to provide our survey to their adolescent and
to sign a
consent form if they were willing to have them participate in
this study. Adolescents who wished to participate were asked to
sign
their own consent form, to complete the survey at home, and
then to return the survey and both consent forms directly to the
researchers by mail in a self-addressed stamped envelope. The
319 youths who returned a completed survey each received $20.
After
accounting for the 14 surveys that were returned by the post
office, the response rate was 48%. Sixty surveys were excluded
because
they were returned too late (n = 5) or without a signed parent
consent form (n = 18), or the youths exceeded the age range for
the
study (12–14 years; n = 4), were living with someone other than
a parent (n = 2), reported on sexual communication with their
father (n = 29), or were missing data on the dependent variable
(n = 2). The final sample size was 259.
2.2. Measures
Demographic characteristics. Adolescents were asked to report
their gender, age, grade, and with whom they were living.
Intentions of being responsive. Adolescents’ intentions of being
responsive to discussions about sexuality with their mother
were assessed using 12 items adapted from a measure of sexual
communication intentions (Byers & Sears, 2012). Youths were
provided with a description of responsiveness (“Being
responsive means listening, paying attention to what is being

said, and asking
or answering questions”) and asked to indicate how likely it was
that, in the next six months, they would be responsive or willing
to
have a conversation or discussion with their mother about each
of 12 topics (see Table 1). Their responses were made on a 5-
point
Likert scale (1 = very unlikely, 2 = unlikely, 3 = neither
unlikely nor likely, 4 = likely, 5 = very likely).
Adolescent characteristics. Two adolescent characteristics were
assessed. First, youths reported whether they were female or
male in the demographic characteristics section. Second, they
indicated the extent to which they expected positive and
negative
outcomes to occur if they were responsive to a discussion with
their mother about sexual health. The 12 items reflected
possible
outcomes for the adolescent (e.g., I would not learn anything
new about sexuality; my parent would listen to me) or their
mother (e.g., my
parent would be embarrassed; my parent would think that I am
planning to have sex). Five items were adapted from Jaccard et
al. (2000),
two items were adapted from DiIorio et al. (2001), and five
items were developed for this study. Responses were made
using a 5-point
Table 1
Factor loadings of sexual communication topics on adolescents’
responsiveness in-
tentions.
Sexual Communication Topic Factor Loading
Correct names for genitals .78

Puberty/Physical development .74
Reproduction & birth .87
Birth control methods & safer sex practices .85
Sexually transmitted diseases .82
Abstinence .81
Sexual coercion & sexual assault .86
Sexual behavior .80
Masturbation .76
Homosexuality .76
Sex in the media and on the Internet .82
Sexual decision-making in dating relationships .84
Note. N = 259.
139
Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). The
sum of the 12 items was computed after reverse coding the six
negative
outcomes, with a higher score reflecting youths’ expectations of
more positive outcomes as a consequence of being responsive.
The
internal consistency of this measure was .81.
Features of previous sexual communication. Adolescents’ views
of three features of previous sexual communication with their
mother were assessed. First, youths indicated the extent to
which they had talked to their mother in the last six months
about each of
the same 12 topics used to assess their responsiveness
intentions. Their responses were made using a 4-point scale (1 =
not at all,

2 = in general terms only, 3 = in some detail, 4 = in a lot of
detail), with higher mean scores indicating more extensive
communication.
Consistent with previous research with parents (e.g., Byers &
Sears, 2012), the internal consistency was high (α = .95). The
ado-
lescents also reported on the frequency, in the last six months,
with which their mother had encouraged them to ask questions
about
sexual health topics (Foster et al., 2011) and their mother had
given them information about sexual health topics (e.g., books,
videos)
(developed for this study). Their responses were made using a
5-point scale (1 = not at all, 5 = very often), with higher scores
on each
item indicating that the behavior had occurred more often.
Features of the mother-adolescent relationship. Adolescents
completed four measures of the mother-adolescent relationship.
We assessed their perceptions of more open communication
with their mother using the 20-item Parent-Adolescent
Communication
Scale (Barnes & Olsen, 1985; e.g., I find it easy to discuss
problems with my parent). Responses were made on a 5-point
Likert scale
(1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). After reverse coding
the 10 negative statements, the 20 items were summed, with a
higher
score reflecting more open general communication. Barnes and
Olsen (1985) provided evidence for the reliability and validity
of the
scale (α = .89 in this study). We also evaluated adolescents’
perceptions of their relationship with their mother using the
Parents as
Social Context Questionnaire (Adolescent Report) (Skinner,
Johnson, & Snyder, 2005). The measure includes three

subscales –
warmth (e.g., My parent thinks I am special); structure (e.g.,
When I want to understand how something works, my parent
explains it to me);
and autonomy support (e.g., My parent lets me do things I think
are important). Each subscale consists of four items and
responses were
made on a 4-point scale (1 = not at all true, 4 = very true).
Subscale items were averaged, with a higher mean score
indicating more
warmth, more structure, and more autonomy support by their
mother. Skinner et al. (2005) provided evidence for the
reliability and
validity of the scale (αs = . 81, .81, and .74 for warmth,
structure, and autonomy support, respectively, in the current
study).
3. Results
3.1. Preliminary analysis
First, we used a principal component analysis (PCA) to confirm
that adolescents’ intentions of being responsive to sexual com-
munication with their mother are best conceptualized as a
composite rather than some combinations of sexual health
topics. An
analysis of the 12 responsiveness intentions items, with oblimin
rotation, revealed a one factor solution that accounted for
65.43% of
the variance. Component loadings ranged from .74 to .87 (see
Table 1). The internal consistency of this responsiveness
intentions
composite was .95.
3.2. Young adolescents’ intentions of being responsive to sexual
communication with their mother

Next, youths were assigned to one of three groups based on
their mean score on the 12-item responsiveness intentions
measure:
Adolescents who indicated that, on average, they were very
unlikely or unlikely to be responsive to sexual health
discussions with
their mother (mean score between 1.00 and 2.49) were placed in
the Unlikely to be Responsive group; those who were neither
unlikely nor likely to be responsive to sexual health discussions
(mean score between 2.50 and 3.49) were placed in the
Ambivalent
group; and those who were likely or very likely to be responsive
to sexual health discussions (mean score between 3.50 and 5.00)
were placed in the Likely to be Responsive group. Cutoff scores
for the groups were selected to position the Ambivalent group
under
the “neither unlikely nor likely” response anchor and centrally
between the other two groups. Overall, 29% of the young
adolescents
were in the Unlikely to be Responsive group, 34% were in the
Ambivalent group, and 37% were in the Likely to be Responsive
group.
3.3. Factors that distinguish youths with diverse responsiveness
intentions
The intercorrelations among the two adolescent characteristics,
the three features of previous sexual communication with their
mother, and the four features of the mother-adolescent
relationship are presented in Table 2. Adolescent gender was
not related to
any of the other factors. With only a few exceptions, the
remaining factors were significantly correlated.
We used discriminant analysis to examine whether young

adolescents’ reports of their characteristics, features of previous
sexual
communication with their mother, and features of the mother-
adolescent relationship separated the three groups. Discriminant
analysis assesses whether one or more linear combinations of
variables (i.e., linear discriminant functions) are related to
group
differences (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2013). Linear discriminant
functions maximize differences between groups, are generated
suc-
cessively, and are orthogonal. A canonical …

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