Leaving home for college: a potentially stressful event for adolescents with preoccupied attachment patterns.
Sixty-two high school students, 28 of which were planning on leaving home to attend college, completed the Adult Attachment Interview and self-report questionnaires pertaining to their relationship with their parents. Compared to their autonomous counterparts, preoccupied students who had left home reported having a more negative relationship with each parent and experiencing more family-related stress. However, they reported having more contact with each parent. In contrast, no attachment differences with regards to perceptions of the parent-adolescent relationship were found among students who lived at home while in college. This suggests that individual differences related to attachment state of mind in adolescence may be magnified by a stressful life experience.
Bernier
Annie
A
Department of Psychology, University of Montreal, Canada. annie.bernier@umontreal.ca
Larose
Simon
S
Whipple
Natasha
N
D000293:Adolescent; D001010:Anxiety, Separation; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D008297:Male; D009769:Object Attachment; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010379:Peer Group; D010465:Perception; D011446:Prospective Studies; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014495:Universities