Abstract
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 fruitful to examine adolescent's attachments to specific attachment figures.
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This study was funded by a grant from the Kent State University Research Council.
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.
Received master's degree in experimental psychology from Kent State University. She is now employed in the field of education.
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Kerns, K.A., Stevens, A.C. Parent-child attachment in late adolescence: Links to social relations and personality. J Youth Adolescence 25, 323–342 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01537388
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01537388