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Peer Attachment and Youth Internalizing Problems: A Meta-Analysis

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Abstract

Background

Peer relationships become the central arena in which attachment processes are likely to play out during adolescence and beyond, and contribute to various aspects of psychosocial adjustment.

Objective

Given the relevance of peer connections and the growing literature examining them, the purpose of this article was to review, through a meta-analytic approach, the evidence of the links of youth close peer relationships with internalizing problems within the theoretical framework of attachment.

Methods

Journal articles were searched in PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, ERIC, Web of Science, and Scopus electronic databases; in journals most likely to publish papers on peer attachment; and in reference lists of selected papers. Thirty-six studies were included in the meta-analysis.

Results

The findings showed significant moderate correlations between peer attachment and anxiety, depression, and internalizing problems. Additional analyses indicated that the dimensions of attachment more strongly related to depression were alienation and trust, whereas peer communication was weakly related to depression. Findings were characterized by significant heterogeneity across studies that was partially explained by the results of moderator analyses.

Conclusions

This study suggests that secure peer attachment might make young people less vulnerable to symptoms of depression and anxiety. Insecure peer attachment, on the other hand, is associated with an increased likelihood of experiencing internalizing symptomatology. Additionally, this study shows the moderating effect of gender suggesting that peer attachment is more strongly related to depressive symptoms in adolescent girls.

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Notes

  1. Search through PsycINFO, PsycArticles, ERIC was done using the platform EBSCO and the keywords could have been reported in any field; in Web of Science the keywords could have been reported in the topic; and in Scopus in the article title, abstract, or keywords.

  2. Specifically, we checked these journals: Child Development, Development and Psychopathology, Journal of Adolescence, Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, Journal of Counseling Psychology, Journal of Early Adolescence, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Journal of Research on Adolescence, Journal of Youth and Adolescence, Personality and Individual Differences) deemed most likely to publish peer attachment studies if they had published ahead-of-print articles that matched inclusion criteria. These journals were selected since they resulted from the previous search in Web of Science and Scopus as the journals in which most articles on peer attachment had appeared.

  3. We could conduct additional analyses with specific dimensions of attachment only for depression, since for anxiety and internalizing symptoms most studies reported associations with overall peer attachment and not with specific dimensions of trust, communication, and alienation.

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    Anna Gorrese

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Gorrese, A. Peer Attachment and Youth Internalizing Problems: A Meta-Analysis. Child Youth Care Forum 45, 177–204 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-015-9333-y

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