Bidirectional associations between parental need support, conflict with parents, and adolescents’ autonomy: A daily diary study

Autonomy is a core developmental task of adolescence, shaped by daily parent-adolescent interactions involving need support and conflict. Guided by Self-Determination Theory, this study examined the bidirectional day-to-day associations between adolescents' perceived parental need support, conflict with parents, and autonomy. Using a daily diary design, this study employed a Dynamic Structural Equation Modeling on a sample of 286 Dutch adolescents (Mage = 11.60, SD = 0.47 at Wave 1), who were followed for one week in four measurement waves (28 days total). The results indicated that, at the within-person level, parental need support was positively associated with adolescent autonomy experiences (perceived choice and self-concept clarity) on the same day. Across days, parental need support and self-concept clarity showed bidirectional associations, such that increases in one predicted increases in the other the following day. In contrast, parental need support predicted next-day perceived choice, but not vice versa. Conflict with parents was negatively associated with autonomy on the same day, but showed no lagged effects. Together, these findings highlight the predictive role of parental need support in adolescents' daily autonomy experiences, and suggest that distinct facets of autonomy may display different temporal dynamics in their associations with parental need support.