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. 2004 Nov-Dec;75(6):1792-805.
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2004.00817.x.

Stability and change in attachment security across adolescence

Joseph P Allen  1 , Kathleen Boykin McElhaney, Gabriel P Kuperminc, Kathleen M Jodl
Affiliations

Stability and change in attachment security across adolescence

Joseph P Allen et al. Child Dev. 2004 Nov-Dec.

Abstract

This study examined both continuity and familial, intrapsychic, and environmental predictors of change in adolescent attachment security across a 2-year period from middle to late adolescence. Assessments included the Adult Attachment Interview, observed mother-adolescent interactions, test-based data, and adolescent self-reports obtained from an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse sample of moderately at-risk adolescents interviewed at ages 16 and 18. Substantial stability in security was identified. Beyond this stability, however, relative declines in attachment security were predicted by adolescents' enmeshed, overpersonalizing behavior with their mothers; depressive symptoms; and poverty status. Results suggest that although security may trend upward for nonstressed adolescents, stressors that overwhelm the capacity for affect regulation and that are not easily assuaged by parents predict relative declines in security over time.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Changing levels of security for youth with vs. without identified risk factors.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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    1. Allen JP, Hauser ST, Bell KL, McElhaney KB, Tate DC. University of Virginia; Charlottesville, VA: 1998. The autonomy and relatedness coding system. Unpublished manuscript.
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    1. Allen JP, McElhaney KB, Land DJ, Kuperminc GP, Moore CM, O'Beirne-Kelley H, et al. A Secure Base in Adolescence: Markers of Attachment Security in the Mother-Adolescent Relationship. Child Development. 2003;74:292–307. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Allen JP, Moore C, Kuperminc G, Bell K. Attachment and adolescent psychosocial functioning. Child Development. 1998;69(5):1406–1419. - PMC - PubMed

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