Stability and Change in Attachment Security Across Adolescence

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 selfreports 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.Given growing evidence of the importance of attachment security in adolescence and adulthood (Allen, Moore, Kuperminc, & Bell, 1998;Furman & Flanagan, 1997;Kobak, Sudler, & Gamble, 1991; van IJzendoorn & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 1996), one of the central questions in attachment research becomes understanding the sources of continuity and discontinuity in attachment security during this period. Bowlby (1980) described the attachment system as being likely to display significant stability over time but also as open to modification given certain types of environmental input. This study examined both continuity and predictors of change in levels of attachment security from middle to late adolescence.Middle to late adolescence appears as a particularly important and promising time to examine continuities and predictors of change in attachment security. The cognitive and relational transformations of adolescence have the potential to influence significantly adolescents' developing states of mind with respect to attachment, possibly leading to significant discontinuities over time in these states of mind (Allen & Land, 1999). In adolescence, only two preliminary, small-sample studies (e.g., each with fewer than 40 participants) with low-risk samples have assessed attachment stability in this period, reporting moderate stability from ages 16 to 18 in a German sample (Zimmermann & Becker-Stoll, 2002) and from ages 14 to 18 in an Italian sample (Ammaniti, van IJzendoorn, Speranza, & Tambelli, 2000). Studies examining attachment stability are now clearly needed not only with larger samples but also with the types of moderate-risk samples within which many of the links between attachment and functioning have been established. Documenting the degree of actual continuity in attachment security across adolescence is only a first step in understanding the development of the attachment system during this period, however. Identifying predictors of future change in levels of attachment security is a critical next step toward building models explaining the linkages between adolescents' psychosocial en...

A sibling adoption study of adult attachment: The influence of shared environment on attachment states of mind

“…It is typically accepted that adoptive parents often have low rates of psychopathology and a higher socioeconomic status (Beckwith et al, 1999, Belsky et al, 1996, Weinfield et al, 2000. It is possible that our sample is not representative of the general population thereby inflating stability of attachment and adult sibling concordance (Allen, McElhaney, Kuperminc, & Jodl, 2004;Bar-Haim, Sutton, Fox, & Marvin, 2000;Belsky & Fearon, 2002;Hamilton, 2000;Lewis, Feiring, & Rosenthal, 2000;Sroufe, 2005;Waters et al, 2000;Weinfield, Whaley, & Egeland, 2004). The distribution of primary attachment classifications differed significantly from what would be expected from estimates derived from meta-analyses.…”

Personality and Attachment to Friends

“…The hypothesis that early parenting experiences may be predictive for personality development is particularly important in light of the findings demonstrating substantial stability of attachment patterns from infancy to early adulthood, with attachment experiences thus playing a relatively consistent role in personality development over time (Allen et al, 2004;. The notion of the relations between attachment experiences and personality has recently received some empirical support.…”

Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology

“…Overall however the weight of evidence suggests that internal working models of attachment are relatively stable from infancy to adulthood and the adolescent's internal working model of self in relationship to others guides their expectations and behaviours (Allen, McElhaney, & Kuperminc, 2004). The level of security experienced in the child-parent relationship forms a template for the pattern of relationships the individual experiences throughout their life (Wilkinson, 2004).…”