Parent-child attachment in late adolescence: Links to social relations and personality

This study examined adolescents' attachments to mother and father and their associations with personality and social relations. College students (N = 112) and their friends (N = 90) participated. The students completed questionnaires measuring attachments to parents, loneliness, and friendship. Students also completed interaction logs for one week. The students' friends completed a friendship questionnaire and a personality description of the student. Qualities of mother-child and father-child attachment were significantly related to reports of loneliness but not friendship quality Attachment to mother was related to the quantity and quality of daily interactions, whereas father-child attachment was related to interaction quality only. Relations between attachment and personality were moderated by sex. For men, strong associations emerged between father-child attachment and friends' personality descriptions. For women, associations between parent-child attachment and personality were contrary to prediction. The findings suggest it may be fruitful to examine adolescent's attachments to specific attachment figures.