Some things are better left unsaid: Topic avoidance in family relationships

This study extends topic avoidance research by investigating both child/parent and sibling relationships. Results indicated that: (1) Adolescents and young adults avoid discussing negative life experiences and dating experiences more with parents than siblings, and more with male targets; (2) adolescents and young adults avoid discussing sexual matters with opposite‐sex family members; (3) female dyads (daughter/mother, sisters) practice the least avoidance on topics involving relationship issues or friendships; and (4) males avoid discussing relationship issues, negative life experiences, dating experiences, and friendships more than females. Wanting to protect oneself was highly predictive of topic avoidance across all family relationships except for sister‐sister relationships. For sisters, partner unresponsiveness and social inappropriateness were predictive of topic avoidance.

Key concepts:

• Topic avoidance
• self‐disclosure
• parent‐child relationships
• sibling relationships
• self protection
• relationship protection
• partner unresponsiveness
• social inappropriateness