You are interested in studying adolescent-parent conflict. Discuss how you would do so using

a questionnaire, and a well-accepted behavior observational procedure. What methodological
issues would you have to consider in such a study?

What will be an ideal response?

There are plenty of questionnaires one could use to assess adolescent-parent conflict,
such as the Network of Relationships Inventory. Questionnaires, of course, have
drawbacks. Beyond concerns over bias and response sets, these instruments really do
not tap actual behavior; rather, they assess perceptions of such behavior. To address this
concern, some have created structured paradigms to assess conflict behavior. In one
standard paradigm, the adolescent and parent are asked to either resolve a conflict that
have had a hard time resolving, or solve a problem that might be common to most
families (e.g., resolving where to go out to dinner).