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Friendship and Romantic Stressors and Depression in Emerging Adulthood: Mediating and Moderating Roles of Attachment Representations

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Abstract

Although friendships and romantic relationships represent important social relationships during emerging adulthood, problems stemming from these relationships may also pose a threat to emerging adults’ psychological functioning (Collins and Madsen in Handbook of personal relationships. Cambridge University Press, New York, pp 191–209, 2006; La Greca and Moore Harrison in J Clin Child Adolesc Psychol 34(1): 49–61, 2005). Thus, investigating relational stressors in friendships and romantic relationships is an important step toward understanding emerging adults’ psychological adjustment. This study focused on examining the relationship between relational stressors and depression, and the mediating and moderating roles of relationship-general attachment representations between these constructs. Data were collected from 164 emerging adults attending a Midwestern university. In partial support of our hypotheses, emerging adults’ attachment anxiety mediated the relationship between experiences of friendship and romantic stressors and depression; this result, however, was not found for attachment avoidance. Furthermore, results showed that attachment avoidance and anxiety moderated the relationship between friendship stressors and depression in emerging adulthood. Supporting our hypothesis, friendship stressors were predictive of higher levels of depression only for emerging adults who were high in attachment avoidance or anxiety. Future research and practical implications are discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Psychology Department, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, 800 Algoma Blvd., CF 8, Oshkosh, WI, 54901, USA

    Chong Man Chow

  2. School Behavioral and Brain Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, 800 W Campbell Rd., GR 41, Richardson, TX, 75080, USA

    Holly Ruhl

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  1. Chong Man Chow
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  2. Holly Ruhl
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Correspondence to Chong Man Chow.

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Chow, C.M., Ruhl, H. Friendship and Romantic Stressors and Depression in Emerging Adulthood: Mediating and Moderating Roles of Attachment Representations. J Adult Dev 21, 106–115 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10804-014-9184-z

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