The Role of Adolescent Attachment in Moderating and Mediating the Links Between Parent and Adolescent Psychological Symptoms

Abstract

The present study examined whether adolescent attachment security and attachment-related representations moderate and mediate, respectively, the link between parent symptoms (depressive and anxiety) and adolescent depressive symptoms. Participants were 189 (118 girls) eleventh graders and their parents in a community sample. Results showed that adolescent attachment moderated the connection between parent and adolescent symptoms; in most cases attachment security was more protective if both parents were high on anxiety symptoms or if one parent was high on anxiety but the other parent was low on depressive symptoms. Mediational analyses indicated that representations of their mothers as a secure base mediated the link between maternal and adolescent depressive symptoms. Perceptions of fathers as a secure base did not play a mediating role, although paternal depressive symptoms were associated with lower perceptions of the father as a secure base. Neither parent's anxiety symptoms were related to perceptions of the parent as a secure base or to adolescent depressive symptoms.

Acknowledgments

Stephanie Warner is now at St. Luke's House, Inc., Bethesda, Maryland. This research was supported by Grant HD36635 from the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development to Jude Cassidy. Fatima Ramos-Marcuse was supported by Grant MH58907 from the National Institute of Mental Health. Portions of this research were presented at the biennial meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development in Atlanta (2005) and Boston (2007). We thank the students who participated in this research. We also thank Steven Bottjer, Jeremy Rachlin, Elizabeth Mizrek, and Jessica Smith for their assistance with data collection; Mindy Rodenberg Cabrera for supervising data collection; and Jonathan Mohr for his helpful comments on an earlier draft. We are grateful to Inbal Kivenson Bar-On, Mindy Rodenberg Cabrera, June Sroufe, Sue Watson, and Marina Zelenko for coding the attachment interviews used in this study.

Notes

*p = .05. **p < .05. ***p < .001.

Note: n = 165. CES–D = Center for Epidemiological Studies Scale for Depression. ANX = Brief Symptom Inventory Anxiety Scale.

*p < .05. **p < .01.