Knowing Yourself in Relations: Longitudinal Associations Between Family Intimacy, Family Conflict, and Self-Concept Clarity in Adolescents.

Introduction: The clarity of self-concept is a pivotal determinant of one's psychological well-being. While existing literature has consistently demonstrated associations between family relationships and self-concept clarity, significant gaps remain in understanding the temporal dynamics and directional influences between specific family relational patterns (particularly intimacy and conflict) and self-concept development during adolescence.

Methods: Random-Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Models (RI-CLPMs) were used to analyze longitudinal data collected from 2001 adolescents (M_age = 16.01 years, SD = 2.68) across three measurement waves spanning 1 year. This analytical approach enabled the disentanglement of stable between-person differences from dynamic within-person processes, providing a more nuanced understanding of these developmental associations.

Results: After disentangling within-person and between-person associations, the results from the RI-CLPMs indicated that, at the within-person level, increased family conflict at Time 2 predicted subsequent decreases in self-concept clarity at Time 3, suggesting a potentially causal influence of family conflict on identity development. At the between-person level, significant correlations emerged among family intimacy, family conflict, and self-concept clarity, indicating that adolescents who generally experience more positive family environments tend to maintain clearer self-concepts.

Conclusion: These results contribute novel insights into the developmental pathways through which family relational patterns shape identity formation during this critical period, while also highlighting the importance of distinguishing between-person stability from within-person change processes in developmental research.