Full length articleThe impacts of motivational framing of technology restrictions on adolescent concealment: Evidence from a preregistered experimental study
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The impacts of motivational framing of technology restrictions on adolescent concealment: evidence from a preregistered experimental study
One of the key challenges of preparing adolescents for adulthood is the task of setting rules and boundaries that balance risks of harm against burgeoning opportunities for personal and social development. This undertaking is made more complex in the digital age as access to ever changing technologies present young people with novel prospects and pitfalls which caregivers never faced themselves (Eynon & Malmberg, 2011). In terms of opportunities, Internet-based apps enable young people to
Participants and procedure
The sample was comprised of 1000 British adolescents from England, Scotland and Wales (519 aged 14 years; 481 aged 15 years). This age range focuses on middle adolescence, a developmental period in which youngsters are particularly sensitive to dynamics related to independence and autonomy (Soenens et al., 2007), and tend to exhibit behavioral problems when in non-supportive conditions (e.g., Kaltiala-Heino et al., 2010, Wills et al., 1996).
Half of respondents were male (n = 486; 48.6%) and the
Preliminary analyses
Correlations are presented in Table 2. Adolescents' age and gender did not relate to outcomes of interest in this study, though 15-year old participants reported their mothers were more supportive of autonomy, in general. Perceiving mothers as being more autonomy supportive in general also related to lower reports of concealing from the mother in the vignettes, and linked to lower rates of reactance and more perceived trustworthiness in the vignettes. Across conditions, all three outcomes
Discussion
The goal in this study was to provide a robust empirical test of the idea that motivational framing of rules can impact how adolescents respond to technology restrictions. Findings from our confirmatory experiment with a large and representative sample of 14–15 year olds showed that motivational strategies for restricting adolescent technology use predicted the extent to which adolescents expected they would conceal technology use. The study and our findings relied on a preregistered design
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