Adolescents’ Appraisals of Family Relationships in Intact Family Contexts: A Scoping Review

(1) Background: Adolescents’ appraisals of family relationships play an important role in bridging family dynamics and maladaptive behavior in various contexts. However, the mechanism of adolescents’ appraisals remains unclear. This review aims to map the state of the art about adolescents’ appraisals of family relationships in intact family contexts from the existing global literature. (2) Methods: The article collection was performed in accordance with the PRISMA guideline and screening articles from 5 sources. Two reviewers independently screened to obtain 10 reported articles that met the inclusion criteria. (3) Results: Analyses identified that 90% of the previous study involved adolescents aged 8–19 years from the United States (USA) and predominantly White. The majority of the samples were also identified from middle to upper class socioeconomic status (n = 6), and relatively low conflict family structure (n = 5). The most commonly used variable term of adolescents’ appraisal was interparental conflict (IPC) appraisals (n = 7), and the Cognitive Contextual Framework (CCF) by Grych et al. was used as a theoretical framework. (4) Conclusions: Based on a global literature review, the findings of this review are limited, based on age, race, socioeconomic status, family structure, and certain geographical locations. The limited range of samples may affect the sensitivity of the theoretical framework and measurement tools in capturing variations in adolescents’ appraisals of family relationships in intact family contexts. Furthermore, the generalizability of these findings may be limited. Accordingly, future studies are encouraged to replicate the present research using larger samples from diverse ages, cultural and socioeconomic status, and family structure backgrounds. Future researchers could further advance this research area by incorporating a wider variety of theoretical perspectives, methodological approaches, and measurement instruments to promote the future health and well-being of adolescents.