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Perceptions of Parent-Child Attachment Relationships and Friendship Qualities: Predictors of Romantic Relationship Involvement and Quality in Adolescence

  • Empirical Research
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Abstract

Relationships with parents and friends are important contexts for developing romantic relationship skills. Parents and friends may influence both the timing of involvement and the quality of romantic relationships. Three models of the joint influence of parents and friends (direct effects model, mediation model, and moderator model) have been proposed. The present study uses data from a longitudinal study (n = 1012; 49.8% female; 81.1% Caucasian) to examine how attachment and friendship quality at age 10 years predict romantic relationship involvement and quality at ages 12 and 15 years. The results supported the direct effects model, with attachment and friendship quality uniquely predicting different romantic relationship outcomes. The findings provide further support for the important influence of family and friends on early romantic relationships.

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Notes

  1. Although adolescents also filled out a father version of the attachment measure at age 10 years, we do not include this measure in our main analyses because mother and father attachment security were highly correlated (r = .73) and thus putting them together in a regression analysis would be problematic. Furthermore, due to missing data for father-child attachment, the number of participants involved in a romantic relationship at ages 12 and 15 years decreased by almost 40 participants, which reduced power substantially. For descriptive purposes, we do provide information about results for father-child attachment in later footnotes.

  2. T-tests revealed that father-child attachment also was related to romantic relationship involvement at age 12 years, with those who were more securely attached less likely to be involved in a romantic relationship (MInvolved = 3.37 and MNotInvolved = 3.16, p < .001).

  3. Although the logistic regression analyses did not find that mother-child attachment was a unique predictor of involvement after controlling for other variables, T-tests revealed that both mother-child attachment and father-child attachment were related to romantic relationship involvement at age 15 years. Those who were more securely attached were less likely to be involved in romantic relationships at age 15 years (MInvolved = 3.33 and MNotInvolved = 3.42, t(923) = 2.48, p < .05; MInvolved = 3.22 and MNotInvolved = 3.37, t(772) = 3.26, p < .01, for mothers and fathers, respectively). Due to our interest in understanding the unique effects of each predictor, we did not interpret these effects but do provide them for descriptive purposes.

  4. Father-child attachment security also correlated significantly with every friendship quality variable (companionship, r = .13, intimacy, r = .11, negative interactions, r = −.20). In addition, father-child attachment was related to less negative interactions in romantic relationships at age 12 years (r = −.19), whereas mother-child attachment security was marginally related to less negative interactions in romantic relationships at age 12 years (r = −.13).

  5. To test whether associations between attachment or friendship with romantic relationship qualities differed for boys and girls, we split our data by gender and re-ran the correlations. Of the 30 correlations, only one was significantly different, and given this was less than what is expected by chance we did not interpret this effect.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge support from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for funding the Early Childhood Care Research Network data set that was used for this study. We would like to acknowledge the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for funding the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development.

Author Contributions

L.B.K. conceived of the study, participated in its design, performed the statistical analyses, participated in the interpretation of data, and drafted the manuscript; K.A.K. participated in the design of the study, provided consultation for the statistical analyses, participated in the interpretation of data, and helped draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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  1. Department of Psychological Sciences, Kent State University, Kent, OH, USA

    Logan B. Kochendorfer & Kathryn A. Kerns

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  1. Logan B. Kochendorfer
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Correspondence to Logan B. Kochendorfer.

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Kochendorfer, L.B., Kerns, K.A. Perceptions of Parent-Child Attachment Relationships and Friendship Qualities: Predictors of Romantic Relationship Involvement and Quality in Adolescence. J Youth Adolescence 46, 1009–1021 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-017-0645-0

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