Research on adolescent development in the context of the family has a long history and, in recent years, a particularly vigorous and stimulating one. Although much of this work has focused on difficulties in family interactions, it is now generally recognized that in most instances social and emotional interdependencies continue well beyond adolescence in spite of the transitory perturbations and altered patterns of interaction that frequently occur in this period (for recent reviews, see Collins, 1990;Hill, 1987;Steinberg, 1990). This more encompassing view has led to a broadening of research perspectives. Once largely engaged in correlational studies of adolescent characteristics and concurrent measures of parental attitudes or typical patterns of control, researchers are increasingly attempting to understand the nature and significance of joint patterns of perception, behavior, and emotion in parent-adolescent relationships.
The chapters in this volume contribute to this emergent relational emphasis in two ways. First, the authors underscore the need for a more differentiated picture of parental and child perceptions and of the implications of perceptual mutuality, or lack thereof, for both individual development and the parent-adolescent relationship. Interpersonal perceptions have long been considered central to close relationships (Hinde, 1979;Hinde and Stevenson-Hinde, 1987; Kelley and others, 1983;Youniss and Smollar, 1985). Hinde and Stevenson-Hinde (1987, p. 2) have noted that relationships include "not only what (two individuals) do together, but the perceptions, fears, expectations and so on that each has about the other and about the future course of the relationship.