Attachment and peer relations in adolescence

Abstract

The aim of this investigation was to examine whether adolescent attachment representation (as assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview) is linked to the quality of adolescents' peer relations (as assessed using a standard battery of peer-report instruments tapping adolescents' social behaviors, peer victimization, social acceptance, and sociometric status). As expected, secure/autonomous adolescents were more likely than insecure/dismissing adolescents to be perceived as behaving prosocially, and less likely to be perceived as aggressive, shy-withdrawn, and victimized by peers. Other findings indicated that insecure/dismissing adolescents, compared to secure/autonomous adolescents, were less likely to be socially accepted by their peers. In addition, insecure/dismissing girls, compared to secure/autonomous girls, were more likely to be neglected; no attachment group differences emerged for boys, or for peer rejection.

Keywords:

• attachment
• peer relations
• social behavior
• victimization
• adolescence
• sociometric status
• peer acceptance

Notes

1. The modifications that we made to the original Parkhurst and Asher (1992) procedure included (a) rewording the five behavioral descriptions, (b) listing 75 names on a roster (rather than 25 names), and (c) asking participants to respond to each name on the roster by circling either “yes,” “no,” or “I don't know this person” (rather than providing the “yes” option only, to be circled when appropriate).

2. Although the n in the larger study was 189, 1 adolescent did not complete the AAI and 58 adolescents did not complete the classroom data collection session. Therefore, using list-wise deletion, we dropped participants with incomplete data from all analyses and examined only those adolescents who had complete data (n = 130).