Parent-child attachment in late adolescence: Links to social relations and personality

Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Vol. 25, No. 3, 1996

Parent-Child Attachment in Late Adolescence: Links to Social Relations and Personality

Kathryn A. Kerns I and Amy C. Stevens 2 Received February 7, 1995; accepted April 7, 1995

This study examined adolescents" attachments to mother and father and their associations with personality and social relations. College students (N = 112) and their friends (N = 90) participated. The students completed questionnaires measuring attachments to parents, loneliness, and friendship. Students also completed interaction logs for one week. The students' friends completed a friendship questionnaire and a personality description of the student. Qualities of mother-child and father-child attachment were significantly related to reports of loneliness but not friendship quality. Attachment to mother was related to the quantity and quality of daily interactions, whereas father-child attachment was related to interaction quality only. Relations between attachment and personality were moderated by sex. For men, strong associations emerged between father-child attachment and friends' personality descriptions. For women, associations between parent-child attachment and personality were contrary to prediction. The findings suggest it may be fruiOrul to examine adolescent's attachments to specific attachment figures.

INTRODUCTION

Bowlby's (1973, 1982, 1979) theory of attachment has served as the theoretical framework for much of the research on the nature, significance,

This study was funded by a grant from the Kent State University Research Council. 1Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio 44242. Received Ph.D. in developmental psychology from State University of New York at Stony Brook. Research interests are children's social development, particularly the role of relationships with parents and peers. To whom correspondence should be addressed.

2 Received master s degree in experimental psychology from Kent State University. She is now employed in the field of education.

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324 Kerns and Stevens

and predictive implications of child-parent bonds. According to Bowlby, all children form attachments to care givers but these attachments vary in quality. A child who has received responsive, sensitive caretaking is expected to develop the expectations that social partners are responsive and available and the self is worthy of others' affection. Conversely, a child who finds attachment figures unavailable, unpredictable, or unresponsive is predicted to form expectations that others are not trustworthy and available and the self is unworthy of others' love. An individual's expectations about self and others, which Bowlby referred to as the individual's working models of self and others, are built up across infancy, childhood, and adolescence (Bowlby, 1973, 1979). Further, Bowlby suggested that attachment history with care givers influences social relations and personality development because individuals come to behave in ways consistent with their expectations for self and others (Bowlby, 1979; 1973; see also Sroufe and Fleeson, 1986). For example, children who have found caretakers consistently responsive and available may view the self as competent to act on their environment and may show more initiative in relating to peers. To date, these hypotheses have been tested mostly with young children. The present paper examines the concurrent correlates of mother-child and father-child attachments in late adolescence.

Conceptualizing Attachment in Late Adolescence

Bowlby's theory has been applied to the study of parent-child relationships (Greenberg et al., 1983), feelings in romantic (love) relationships (Collins and Read, 1980; Hazan and Shaver, 1987), and assessments of state of mind in regard to a t t achment in adolescence and adul thood (Bartholomew and Horowitz, I991; Kobak et al., 1993; Main et al., 1985). Although it is often not made explicit, most of the work on adolescent and adult attachment differs in a fundamental way from work on younger children's attachments to parents. Research on attachment in infancy and early childhood has examined the predictive significance of the qualities of particular attachments. By contrast, most of the work on adolescent attachment has focused on characterizing an individual's general feelings, beliefs, and style of relating in close relationships, often termed attachment style. When adolescents have been asked about relationships with parents, they were asked to describe parents as a unit rather than reporting about the relationship with each parent (e.g., Armsen and Greenberg, 1987; Greenberg et al., 1983). Not examined in these approaches are the role and importance of particular attachment relationships. Only recently has there been an el-

Parent-Child Attachment in Late Adolescence 325

fort to distinguish between an adolescent's attachment relationships with mother and father (Paterson et al., 199).

An analysis of particular attachments is important for several reasons. Bowlby (1982) proposed the idea of monotropy-- that an individual may maintain multiple attachments but one attachment is primary or more important to the individual than other attachments. Bowlby proposed that typically the mother serves as a child's primary attachment figure. One im- plication of this hypothesis is that attachments to mother may be more predictive of a child's development than attachments to other care givers such as fathers. In a few studies in which a child's security of attachment to mother and father have both been assessed, attachment to mother has been found to be more predictive of a child's socioemotional functioning and peer competence (Main and Weston, 1981; Main et al., 1985; Suess et al., 1992). In two other studies, father-child attachment was more consistently related to children's peer relationships (Kerns and Barth, 1995, Youngblade et al., 1993). The available data have examined specific attachments in young children. Cohn et al. (1991) speculate that father-child relationships take on greater significance once a child reaches school age, suggesting there may be a shift with age in the relative influence of mother- child and father-child attachments. Alternatively, it may be that attachments to the same-sex parent take on more significance after adolescence. Consistent with this hypothesis, adolescent girls report an increase and adolescent boys a decrease in proximity to and support seeking from mothers from mid to late adolescence (Paterson et al., 1994). Another possibility is that mother-child and father-child attachments influence different domains of social development. By separately evaluating both mother-child and father-child attachment, the contributions of each can be examined.

A second issue concerns which methodological approaches provide a strong test of the tenets of attachment theory. A strength of the child literature is that assessments of attachment and socialization outcomes are obtained from different sources. It is important to obtain information about attachment and outcome variables from different sources whenever possible, given that multiple self-reports can be correlated for theoretically un- interesting reasons (e.g., common method variance, self-report biases). The study of attachment in adolescence can be enhanced by employing a variety of methods to assess the correlates of attachment.

Implications of Attachment for Social Relations and Personality

Attachment theory predicts that attachments with care givers will influence the quality of other close relationships and social interactions. One


reason for this link is that parental attachments may provide a set of expectations for how to relate to others and how to interpret others' actions (Bowlby, 1973; Sroufe and Fleeson, 1986). Secure attachments to care givers also may provide a secure base that promotes social interaction with peers (Sroufe and Waters, 1977). Finally, a secure attachment relationship may provide a context in which children can develop a competent interaction style that subsequently generalizes to interactions outside the attachment relationship (Youngblade and Belsky, 1992). For example, a child who has experienced open communication and responsiveness to emotional needs from a parent may adopt these characteristics in other relationships. For these reasons, more secure attachments to parents may promote more rewarding interactions and relationships with others.

One way this hypothesis has been tested is by examining parental attachments and a child's social interaction patterns with peers. Children's interactions with peers are typically sampled in natural contexts such as preschools or day camps. Research with young children has shown that a secure attachment to mother or father is associated with a positive social orientation and a generally competent interaction style with peers (Elicker et al., 1992; Kerns and Barth, 1995; LaFreniere and Sroufe, 1985; Sroufe, 1983; Suess et al., 1992; Waters et al., 1979). There have been a few studies in which self-reported attachment in adolescence has been related to behavioral observation in lab contexts. Attachment style is related to self-disclosure during conversations with peers (Mikulincer and Nachshon, 1991) and support seeking and giving in dating couples (Simpson et al., 1992). Although the number of studies examining social interaction is small, the results support the hypothesis that attachment influences social interaction patterns with others. This work could be extended by examining whether attachment predicts social interaction in more naturalistic contexts.

If attachment influences patterns of social interaction, it may also be related to how individuals subjectively appraise the adequacy of their social relations, including feelings of loneliness. Consistent with this hypothesis, children in middle childhood who report a more secure attachment to their mother also report less loneliness (Kerns, 1996). College students with dis- missing attachments report more loneliness than those with secure attachments in the spring of their first year at college (Kobak and Sceery, 1988). The findings suggest it may be important to evaluate whether specific attachments to parents predict loneliness in late adolescence.

In addition to predicting loneliness and patterns of social interaction with peers, parental attachment have been linked to the quality of children's friendships. Observational studies with children in early or middle childhood have found links between attachment and friendship quality, with a more secure attachment to mother (Kerns, 1994; Kerns, 1996; Park and


Waters, 1989) or father (Youngblade et al., 1993) associated with a more responsive and positive interaction style with friends. Two studies with late adolescents have examined these links. Self-reports of friendship closeness (Bartholomew and Horowitz, 1991) or social support from friends (Kobak and Sceery, 1988) have not correlated with measures of attachment, although Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991) found moderately strong links between how an adult discussed friendship and family relationships. Thus, studies examining friendship and attachment in adolescence do not provide uniform support for the hypothesis that attachment influences friendships, suggesting the need to explore these links further.

One goal of the present study was to extend work on attachment and social relations in adolescence. First, the study tested whether perceptions of mother-child and father-child attachment are related to subjective ap- praisals of the adequacy of social relations by obtaining reports of loneliness. It was expected that adolescents with a secure attachment to mother or father, who presumably would have less difficulty establishing and main- taining close relationships, would report experiencing less loneliness. Sec- ond, the study examined whether parental attachments are related to everyday interactions sampled in naturalistic contexts. Samples of everyday interactions patterns were obtained by having subjects keep interaction logs that provided information about the quantity and quality of an individual's social interactions. It was expected that, consistent with theory and the child literature, more secure attachments to parents would be associated with more positive interactions with social partners. In particular, adolescents with more secure attachments to parents may feel more intimate and connected to others in social exchanges. Finally, the study tested the hypothesis that attachments to parents provide a framework for other close relationships (Bowlby, 1973; Sroufe and Fleeson, 1986) by examining associations between attachment and friendship quality.

In addition to fostering positive relations with others, attachment relationships are implicated in personality development. Individuals who develop secure attachments to care givers, and thereby have available a secure base when needed, are expected to be more self-reliant and to be able to meet challenges and demands in a flexible manner without becoming overwhelmed (Bowlby, 1979). The need for a secure base continues into adolescence (Bowlby, 1989). Individuals who participate in secure relationships with care givers may develop, in the context of those relationships, the ability to regulate their emotions and thereby meet challenges without becoming overwhelmed (Kobak et al., 1993; Kobak and Sceery, 1988). By contrast, children who form insecure attachments to care givers may not have the opportunity to express and learn to cope with negative emotions (Green-


berg and Speltz, 1988), and consequently may not develop a flexible and resourceful problem-solving style.

Longitudinal studies with children have found that a secure attachment to mother in infancy predicts less dependency with teachers (Sroufe et al., 1983) and less hostility with peers (Sroufe, 1983) in preschool, and greater ego resilience in preschool classrooms (Sroufe, 1983) and summer day camps in preadolescence (Elicker et al., 1992). Only two studies with adolescents and adults have provided independent assessments of personality and attachment. Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991) found that an interview measure of attachment was related to both self-reports and friend reports of personality; in particular, more secure subjects were reported to be less cold and introverted. Kobak and Sceery (1988) used the Adult Attachment Interview to assess attachment and obtained reports of personality from a target's acquaintance. It was predicted that secure adolescents would be able to modulate negative affect and be able to use resourceful and flexible strategies to cope with stressful events (Kobak and Sceery, 1988). Consis- tent with these predictions, Kobak and Sceery found that secure adolescents were more ego resilient and less hostile and anxious than insecure adolescents.

The lack of research assessing links between attachment and personality is surprising given that Bowlby (1982, 1979, 1989) saw parental attachments as a major influence on personality development. A second goal of the study was to examine how adolescents' reports of parental attachments are related to independent reports of the target's personality. More specifically, secure attachments to parents were expected to be related to the ability to modulate affect and engage in resilient coping (Kobak and Sceery, 1988). Demonstrating that self-report measures of attachment predict an acquaintance's reports of personality would provide additional evidence of validity for self-report measures of attachment.

METHOD

Subjects

One hundred twelve introductory psychology students participated and received experimental credit for course completion. There were 61 females and 51 males. Subjects were between the ages of 17 and 25 (84% under 21 years of age). Most subjects were freshmen or sophomores (95%) and were single (95%). Also participating were same-sex friends of 90 of the subjects. To encourage participation of friends, the names of all friend participants were entered in a drawing for $100.


Procedure

The study consisted of three parts: an initial one hour meeting to complete questionnaires, one week of keeping daily logs, and a lab session to which the subject brought a friend. Subjects attended the initial session in groups of 8-12. First, subjects completed a packet of questionnaires. Next, subjects met in groups of 3 or 4 and the daily logs were explained. Subjects then completed interaction logs for one week. After completing the logs, subjects brought a friend to a laboratory session. The subject completed a friendship questionnaire. In a separate room the friend completed the same friendship questionnaire and then provided a q-sort description of the subject's personality.

Measures

Parent-Child Attachment

Participants completed a revised version of the Adult Attachment Scale (Collins and Read, 1990). The original version of the scale, which was designed to measure a person's general style in close relationships, contains 18 items measuring three dimensions of attachment style: Depend, Anxiety, and Close. The Depend scale measures the extent to which the subjects feel they can trust and depend on others. Items on the Anxiety scale measure fear of abandonment and not being loved. The Close scale taps how comfortable subjects are with closeness and intimacy. Scores on each dimension are calculated by summing scores of items on a scale. Col- lins and Read (1990) report satisfactory levels of internal consistency for the scales and convergent validity with Hazan and Shaver's (1987) classi- fication measure of attachment style.

Items from the Collins and Read scales were adapted to measure a subject's attachment relationship with his or her mother and father. For example, "I find it relatively easy to get close to others," an item from the original Close scale was changed to "I find it relatively easy to get close to my morn [dad]." Subjects rated all items twice, once reporting attachment to mother and then reporting attachment to father. In this study one item was omitted from each scale because the content did not seem rele- vant to parent-child relationships or the item was redundant with another item on the scale. In addition, one item on the anxiety scale was reworded to take account of the nonvoluntary nature of parent-child relationships: The item "I often worry my partner will not want to stay with me" was changed to "I often worry my dad [mom] will get really angry at me." Sub-


jects rated items from not at all characteristic (1) to very characteristic (5). Cronbach alphas for the scales were as follows: Depend for mother, .83, and father, .88; Close for mother, .63, and father, .69; and Anxiety for mother, .50, and father, .62. Correlations between mother-child and father-child scores on the three dimensions were low to moderate: Close, r = .42, p < .001; Depend, r = .18, ns; and Anxiety, r = .36, p < .001.

Loneliness

Subjects completed the 20-item UCLA Loneliness Scale (Russell et al., 1980). Subjects rated items on a 4-point scale (never, rarely, sometimes, or often). Cronbach alpha for this scale was .89.

Interaction Log

Subjects were asked to record their daily interactions on logs for one week using the Rochester Interaction Record (RIR; Nezlek et al., 1983). Subjects recorded several pieces of information every time they engaged in an interaction that was at least 10 minutes long. An interaction was de- fined as any situation involving 2 or more people in which the behavior of each person is in response to the behavior of the other person (Nezlek et al., 1983). Subjects recorded how many males and females were involved in each interaction, as well as the time, date, and length of the interaction. In addition, the subject rated several variables designed to measure the subject's perceived quality of the interaction: Intimacy, I Disclosed, Others Disclosed, Social Integration, Quality, Satisfaction, Initiation, and Influ- ence. Most items were rated on 7-point scales with 1 indicating the low end (e.g., very little, superficial) and 7 indicating the high end (e.g., a great deal, meaningful). Initiation and influence were rated so that a middle score indicated equal influence between self and partner, low scores indicated subject had more influence, and high scores indicated partners had more influence. Subjects also recorded the nature of the interaction (job, date, etc.). To ensure that the logs were filled out promptly, subjects gave completed logs to a contact person every two days. Log data from 5 subjects could not be used because the subjects did not keep records properly or did not complete the logs for at least 5 days; 95% of subjects returned usable logs. This rate of completion is similar to other studies (see Nezlek et al., 1983). Subjects kept logs from 5 to 10 days (M = 7.25).

It was of interest to measure both the quantity and quality of social interactions. To control for differences in the number of recording days,


the quantity of social interactions was computed as the average number of interactions per day. As in other samples (e.g., Wheeler et al., 1989), scores on some ratings of interaction quality were highly correlated, and therefore it was desirable to reduce the set to a smaller number of variables. Fol- lowing Wheeler et al. (1989), scores on the three disclosure scales were averaged to form a measure of intimacy; scores on influence and initiation were averaged to obtain a measure of control; and satisfaction and quality were averaged to obtain a measure of quali~y. Cronbach alphas for the composites were, respectively, .92, .86, and .75. The social integration rating, which assesses feelings of connectedness to others in interaction, is a relatively recent addition to the RIR and was not included in the Wheeler et al. (1989) study. The social integration item showed only low to moderate correlations with other scales, suggesting it tapped a distinct aspect of social interaction, and therefore it was retained as a separate item.

In other research, the quantity and quality of social interactions have been significantly correlated with feelings of loneliness (Nezlek et al., 1983; Wheeler et al., 1983). As a check on the validity of our subjects' RIR ratings, loneliness scores were correlated with the quantity and ratings of quality of interactions. Loneliness was significantly correlated with the average number of interactions, r = -.35, p < .001. In addition, loneliness was related to ratings of social integration, r = -.34, p < .001, intimacy, r = -.27, p < .01, and quality, r = -.22, p < .05. Thus, subjects' reports of the quantity and quality of daily interactions correlated in expected ways with loneliness scores.

Friendship

Target subjects were asked to bring in a close same-sex friend. As a check on friendship status, the target subject and friend were independently asked to indicate (yes or no) whether they considered the other person to be a close friend. Eighty-five percent of the target subjects and 91% of the friends indicated that the other person was a close friend. A Pearson chi squares 2 by 2 analysis confirmed that there was significant agreement among friends as to whether their relationship was a close friendship, 2z --- 12.43, p < .001.

The Network of Relationships Inventory (Furman and Buhrmester, 1985) was used to measure positive and negative features of friendship. Participants and their friends each completed three scales (with 3 items per scale) tapping positive friendship qualities: companionship (e.g., "How often do you go places and do enjoyable things with this person?"), intimacy (e.g., "How much do you tell this person everything?"), and affection


(e.g., "How much does this person like or love you?"). In addition, participants and friends each completed two scales (with 3 items per scale) tapping negative features of friendship: conflict (e.g., "How much do you and this person disagree and quarrel?") and annoyance (e.g., "How much do you and this person get on each other's nerves?"). Subjects rated ques- tions on a 5-point scale from Little or None (1) to The Most (5). Cronbach alphas for all scales exceeded .80. Due to high intercorrelations among subscales, two composites were derived. Scores on companionship, affection, and intimacy were aggregated to create an index of positive features of friendship; scores on conflict and annoyance were aggregated to create a measure of negative features of friendship. Cronbach alphas for subjects' and friends' reports of positive and negative features of friendship all exceeded .82.

Personality

At the lab session the subject's friend completed Block's (1971) personality q-sort. The subject's friend was asked to use the 100 trait-descriptive items in the q-sort to describe the subject. The friend's task was to rank the items into piles from most to least like the subject. After first subdividing the items into three piles--like subject, unlike subject, neither like nor unlike--the friend was instructed to further subdivide the items into 9 piles (most to least descriptive of subject) with the following number of items per pile: 5, 8, 12, 16, 18, 16, 12, 8, 5.

The Block Q-sort assessment was selected because it has been used in another study of attachment and personality (Kobak and Sceery, 1988). Item clusters measuring four personality constructs were formed following Kobak and Sceery (1988): ego resilience (i.e., resourceful adaptation to changing circumstances), ego undercontrol (i.e., inability to modulate affect or delay gratification), hostility, and anxiety. The definitions of ego resilience and ego undercontrol are adapted from Block and Block (1980). Cronbach alphas and item-total correlations were performed to assess the internal consistency of the scales. To achieve adequate reliability it was necessary to drop some items from the clusters. Two items were dropped from the ego resilience scale, 4 items from the ego undercontrol scale, and 1 item from the hostility scale. Cronbach alphas for these scales, following item deletions, were: ego resilience, .77; ego undercontrol, .64; and hostility, .64. The anxiety scale proved somewhat problematic; alpha for the original scale was .50. Efforts were taken to identify a better item pool by correlating the anxiety total score with other items in the q-set. Five of 8 original items


were retained and 2 new items added; alpha for the revised scale was .69. Final item clusters are given in Appendix A.

RESULTS

Associations between the dimensional measures of parent--child attachment (Close, Depend, Anxiety) and other variables were examined with Pearson correlation coefficients. All significance tests were two tailed. Cor- relations also were calculated separately by sex to check whether sex moderated any of the associations; analyses are presented separately by sex only when patterns were different for men and women.

Parent-Child Attachment: Links to Loneliness, Social Interactions, and Friendship

The first set of analyses examined whether parental attachments are related to reports of loneliness. As shown in Table I, subjects' Close, De- pend, and Anxiety ratings of both mother-child and father-child attachments were all significantly related to loneliness, with more secure attachments associated with less loneliness.

The next set of analyses examined whether attachment is related to self-reports of the quantity and quality of daily interactions. As shown in Table I, tile mother-child relationship was related to the quantity of interactions. More specifically, individuals who reported feeling closer to and more able to depend on their mothers reported a higher average number of daily interactions. Mother-child attachment was also related to reported quality of interactions; participants who felt closer to and able to depend on their mothers reported higher levels of social integration. Although father-child attachment was not related to the quantity of interactions, it was related to perceived interaction quality. Subjects who were closer to their fathers reported higher levels of social integration and quality in their interactions. In addition, father-child depend and anxiety scores were significantly related to ratings of social integration.

The last set of analyses tested links between parent-child attachment and friendship quality. Both the subject and the friend rated their friendship to obtain each person's perspective. There was some convergence in friends' reports, as evidenced by covariation in ratings for positive features, r = .61, p < .001, and negative features, r = .36, p < .001, of their friendship. Subjects' reports of mother-child or father-child attachment dimen-


Table I. Correlations of Qualities of Mother-Child and Father-Child Attachment with Loneliness and Quantity and Quality of Social Interactions

Mother Father

Close Depend Anxiety Close Depend Anxiety

Loneliness -.55 c -.47 c .32 c -.39 c -.37 c .25 a

Daily interactions Quantity

Average number .23 a .27 b -.11 .14 .14 -.09 Quality

Control -.03 .09 .03 -.05 -.18 .08 Social integration .34 c .19 a -.12 .35 c .30 c -.22 c Quality .10 .07 -.09 .24 a .13 -.07 Intimacy .16 .13 -.02 .17 -.07 .04

< .05. ~P< .01. Cp < .001.

sions were not significantly correlated with the subjects' or the friends' ratings of friendship quality.

Parent-Child Attachment: Links to Personality

The hypothesis was that a t tachments to parents would predic t a friend's reports of a subject's ability to regulate affect and display resilience. Associations between attachment and personality were examined by relating subjects' self-reports of at tachment to their friends' ratings of the subject 's personality. In the domain of personality, associations varied by sex; for this reason, correlations between parent-child at tachment and personality are presented separately for men and women (see Table II). For men, father-child attachment, but not mother-child attachment, was related to personality. Men who were closer to their fathers were perceived by friends as less hostile and lower on ego undercontrol. Mens' reports of ability to depend on their fathers was positively related to ego resilience and nega- tively related to hostility. Mens' reports of anxiety in the father-child re- l a t i o n s h i p was p o s i t i v e l y c o r r e l a t e d wi th f r i e n d s ' r a t i ngs of ego undercontrol.

There was only one significant association between parent-child attachment and personality for women and the effect was not in the predicted direction. For women, closeness in the mother-child relationship was nega- tively correlated with ego resilience. For the father-child relationship, associations between attachment and personality were not significant.


Table II. Correlations Between Qualities of Parent-Child Attachment and Friends' Ratings of Subjects' Personality

Mother Father

Close Depend Anxiety Close Depend Anxiety

Men (N

Ego resilience .20 -.01 Ego undercontrol -.07 .18 Hostility -.07 .14 Anxiety -.13 .00

Women (N =

Ego resilience -.29 ~ -.18 Ego undercontrol .05 .14 Hostility .17 .04 Anxiety .12 .19

38) .04 .30 .07 -.34 a

-.01 -.57 b -.09 -.25

49)

.18 -.17 -.19 .03 -.18 .03 -.06 .15

(N = 36) .33 a -.15

-.28 .34a -.51 c .29 -.29 -.09

(N = 48) -.24 .14 .08 -.08 .06 -.08 .27 -.05

< .05. ~pP< .01. cp < .00l.

DISCUSSION

The present study investigated the predictive significance of mother - child and father-child attachments in late adolescence. A measure of adult attachment style was modified to assess the quality of specific attachments. Qualities of both mother-child and father-child attachment were significantly related to loneliness: adolescents with more secure attachments to mother or father reported less loneliness. Attachments were also related to reported quality of daily interactions, although there was some specificity to this effect: subjects close to or able to depend on their mother or father reported feeling more connected to others during interaction. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that parental attachments influence the quality of social interactions outside at tachment relationships (Bowlby, 1973; Sroufe and Fleeson, 1986). The ability to feel connected to others may explain why individuals with a secure attachment style reported less loneliness in the present study, and have reported more satisfaction with their romantic relationships in other studies (Collins and Read, 1990; Feeney and Noller , 1990; Hazan and Shaver, 1987; Simpson, 1990). Mother-child attachment was also related to the quantity of social interactions, suggesting that the availability of a secure base may promote social interaction with others (Sroufe and Waters, 1977).

Although parent-child attachments were related to loneliness and everyday social interactions, they were not related to either self-reports or friend reports of friendship quality. The present findings are contrary to


the prediction that secure parental attachments foster more positive friendships (Sroufe and Fleeson, 1986; Youngblade and Belsky, 1992), but consistent with other studies finding no association between attachment and self or friend reports of friendship in adolescence (Bartholomew and Horowirz, 1991; Kobak and Sceery, 1988). There are several possibilities for why parent-child attachment and friendship were not related. First, given that friendships are voluntary, a person can terminate a friendship that is not satisfying. Thus, when studying friendship pairs, investigators are looking at individuals who have freely chosen to enter into and maintain the relationship. As a result, links between attachment and reports of friendship may prove weaker than links between attachment and reports of more permanent relationships such as marriage because the latter are more difficult to terminate and more likely to continue when serious conflicts arise. Consistent with this hypothesis, attachment style has been shown to predict the quality of marital relationships (e.g., Kobak and Hazan, 1991). A second possibility is that the demands of friendship may be less likely to tax attachment-related capacities (e.g., the ability to use others as a secure base as well as serve as a secure base for others). A third possibility is that links between attachment and friendship will be more predictable if information about each individual's attachment history is available. In studies of children's peer relationships (Kerns, 1994; Kerns, 1996; Park and Waters, 1989; Troy and Sroufe, 1987), peer dyads were observed and investigators had information about the quality of each child's attachment to mother, and it was the dyadic combination (e.g., two securely attached children, or one securely and one insecurely attached child) that was predictive of relationship quality. In adulthood, it may be that particular attachment pairings will be found to have distinct friendship patterns.

In the domain of personality, it was expected that secure attachments to parents would promote a more flexible, resourceful, and relaxed problem-solving style as well as an ability to modulate affect (Kobak and Sceery, 1988). In this sample, results varied by target sex, with the expected results obtained for men only. For men, father-child attachment but not mother- child attachment, was related to personality; male adolescents ~ secure attachment to father was associated with healthier personality development. More specifically, men who were closer to or more able to depend on their fathers were perceived by friends as less hostile. In addition, men who were able to depend on their fathers were rated by friends as more ego resilient. Finally, men who were in closer or less anxious relationships with their fathers were rated lower on ego undercontrol.

The association between father-child attachment and hostility for men was particularly strong and is generally consistent with the early childhood literature. Studies with young children have not looked at links between


father-child attachment and conduct problems, although several studies have found that associations between mother-child attachment and conduct problems are stronger for boys than for girls (Cohn, 1990; Lewis et al., 1984; Renken et al., 1989). An important question is why attachment and hostility are correlated. Greenberg and Speltz (1988) suggest that parents of insecurely attached children may try to restrain rather than cope with their children's displays of negative affect. As a result, insecurely attached children may not learn how to regulate affect. Consistent with this hypothesis, Kobak et al. (1993) found that attachment was related to adolescents' ability to regulate emotion when discussing conflicts with mothers. Green- berg and Speltz also suggest that the inability to regulate affect may con- tribute to the development of conduct problems. This hypothesis suggests it may be fruitful to study emotion regulation as a mediator of links between attachment and disruptive behavior, particularly for males.

The expected associations between attachment and personality were not found for women. There was only one significant effect (out of 24 correlations), and it ran counter to prediction: women who reported feeling less closeness to their mothers were perceived by friends as more ego resilient. Perhaps these women had responded to unavailable care givers by developing a pattern Bowlby (1979) termed compulsive self-reliance. Given sex role expectations, self-reliant women may be perceived by friends as unusually goal directed and resourceful. However, because there was only one significant effect, the finding should be treated with caution until rep- licated. Nevertheless, the different results for men and women suggest it may be important to examine sex as a moderator of links between attachment and personality.

The study design made it possible to evaluate whether mother-child or father-child attachment was more consistently related to social relations and personality in late adolescence. Many of the studies of attachment in children have examined mother-child relationships only, and therefore we have relatively little information about the importance of children's attachments to fathers. In this study, both mother-child and father-child attachment were related to loneliness and feelings of connectedness to others in everyday interactions, suggesting that attachments to both parents influence patterns of social interaction in late adolescence. In the domain of personality, however, only the relationship with the same-sex parent was related to personality, with consistent and strong effects for men only. The pattern of results for personality suggests that it may be important to examine specific attachments to parents in adolescence, but it also raises several ques- tions. First, it raises the issue of whether there is a shift in the relative influence of mother-child and father-child attachment on personality across developmental periods. Studies that assess mother-child and father-


child attachment and make explicit cross-age comparisons would provide a more direct test of this hypothesis. Second, the findings suggest that, for personality, attachment to the same-sex parent may carry more significance.

A strength of the present study is that it employed a variety of methods, with data collected from both target subjects and friends. The different methods complement one another and provide alternative means for testing hypotheses. Due to the nature of the construct, loneliness was assessed through self-report. Reports of friendship quality were obtained from both the target and friends to overcome some of the problems with relying on a single data source (e.g., all measures correlated due to respondent's mood or response biases such as social desirability). The use of diary recording made it possible to assess social interactions in context. Although they are time-consuming to complete and score, diary recordings may have some advantages over questionnaires that require global, summary judgments. In particular, they may help overcome cognitive distortions in self-reports such as selective recall of events or difficulties in aggregating across multiple events (Reis and Wheeler, 1991). Observation of behavior in controlled settings, which was not employed in the present study, is another technique for sampling social interaction and/or personality. Although some of these methods are labor intensive, the use of multiple methods ensures that findings are not method bound and provides more rigorous tests of hypotheses.

It is important to note the limitations of the study that constrain in- terpretations of the results. The present study has examined concurrent correlates of parent-child attachment. Although attachment theory would predict that it is attachment influencing personality and social relations, the design of the present study does not provide a basis for testing the direction of influence. In addition, no claim is made that the obtained associations are due to early attachments. Teasing out direction of influence and the significance of early experience requires prospective, longitudinal studies (see Sroufe et al., 1990).

Appendix A. Item Clusters Derived from California Q-set (Block, 1971)

2. 9. 15.

26. 28. 30.

35.

Ego resilience (alpha = .77)

Is a genuinely dependable and responsible person. Is uncomfortable with uncertainty and complexities, a Is skilled in social techniques of imaginative play, pretending, and humor. Is productive; gets things done. Tends to arouse liking and acceptance in people. Gives up and withdraws where possible in the face of frustration and adversity, a Has warmth; has the capacity for close relationships; compassionate.

Parent-Child Attachment in Late Adolescence

Appendix A. Continued

339

40. 45.

55. 56. 60. 78. 79. 83. 92. 96.

2. 14. 20. 24. 33. 41.

50. 53.

62. 82. 94.

1. 23. 27. 36.

37. 38.

94.

13.

19. 34. 40. 47.

72.

89.

Is vulnerable to real or fancied threat; generally fearful, a Has a brittle ego-defense system; has a small reserve of integration; would be disorganized and maladeptive when under stress or trauma, a Is self-defeating, a Responds to humor. Has insight into own motives and behavior. Feels cheated and victimized by life; self-pitying, a Tends to ruminate and have persistent, preoccupying thoughts, a Able to see to the heart of important problems. Has social poise and presence; appears socially at ease. Values own independence and autonomy.

Ego undercontrol (alpha = .64)

Is a genuinely dependable and responsible person, a'b Genuinely submissive; accepts domination comfortably, a Has a rapid personal tempo; behaves and acts quickly. Prides self on being "objective," rational, a Is calm, relaxed in manner, a Is moralistic. (Note: Regardless of the particular nature of the moral code.) a Is unpredictable and changeable in behavior and attitudes. Various needs tend toward relatively direct and uncontrolled expression; unable to delay gratification. Tends to be rebellious and nonconforming. Has fluctuating moods. Expresses hostile feelings directly.

Hostility (alpha = .64)

Is critical, skeptical, not easily impressed. Tends to transfer or project blame. Shows condenscending behavior in relations with others. Is subtly negativistic; tends to undermine and obstruct or sabotage. Is guileful and deceitful, manipulative, opportunistic. Has hostility toward others. (Note: Basic hostility is intended here; mode or expression is to be indicated by other items.) Expresses hostile feelings directly, c

Anxiety (alpha = .69)

Is thin-skinner; sensitive to anything that can be construed as criticism or an interpersonal slight. Seeks reassurance from others. Overreactive to minor frustrations; irritable. Is vulnerable to real or fancied threat; generally fearful, a Has a readiness to feel guilty. (Note: Regardless of whether verbalized or not.) Concerned with own adequacy as a person, either at conscious or unconscious levels. Compares self to others. Is alert to real or fancied differences between self and other people.

aItem reversed for scoring. bltem appears on both ego resilience and ego undercontrol scales. Cltem appears on both ego undercontrol and hostility scales. dltem appears on both ego resilience and anxiety scales,


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks are extended to Mary Ann Parris Stephens and Chandra Mar- tin for their comments on an earlier version of this paper. Thanks are also extended to the many undergraduate research assistants who assisted with data collection and data entry.

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Parent-child attachment in late adolescence: Links to social relations and personality