“She Had a Reason to Be Concerned”: Youths Making Sense of Their Mothers' and Friends' Perspectives in Their Accounts of Conflicts

- Age increases in the representation of other's perspective, especially reasons.
- Age increases in the validation of other's differing perspective.
- More frequent agreement with the mother's than friend's perspective.
- More frequent invalidation of the friend's than mother's perspective.
- Conflict resolutions were related to the evaluation of other's perspective.

The study examined how preadolescents and adolescents represent and make sense of their mothers' and friends' perspectives concerning their real-life conflicts. Participants (N = 108) in three age groups (10-, 14-, and 17-year-olds) provided narrative accounts of their own conflicts with mothers and friends. The findings revealed age-related gains in understandings of others' perspectives, with youths increasingly referring to others' reasons and critically examining the validity of others' perspectives. Contrary to some assumptions in the literature, youths were as likely to explain and validate their mother's as their friend's perspective. Moreover, youths more frequently agreed with their mother's perspective and invalidated their friend's perspective. The findings provide important insights into the different contexts afforded by youths' relationships for socio-cognitive development.