Adolescents\u27 Subjective Distress Over Their Emotional/Behavioral Problems

This study analyzed the relations among 151 7th- and 8th-grade adolescents\u27 self-evaluations of the occurrence of their behavior, their own subjective distress over their behavior, their perceptions of their personal competence, their perceptions of their mothers\u27 and fathers\u27 distress over these behaviors, and their parents\u27 reports of the occurrence of adolescent behaviors. As hypothesized, adolescents\u27 self-reports of occurrence of their behaviors were significantly but moderately correlated with their subjective distress about these behaviors, and adolescents made a distinction between the occurrence of a behavior and their distress about it. Externalizing behaviors were rated by adolescents as more distressing to mothers and to fathers than to adolescents themselves, and conversely, internalizing behaviors were rated as more distressing to self than to parents. Ratings of subjective distress were significantly related to self-perceptions of behavioral conduct and self-worth, whereas parents\u27 ratings of the occurrence of behavior were not related to these self-perceptions