TY - JOUR
T1 - What I like about you
T2 - The association between adolescent attachment security and emotional behavior in a relationship promoting context
AU - Hershenberg, Rachel
AU - Davila, Joanne
AU - Yoneda, Athena
AU - Starr, Lisa R.
AU - Miller, Melissa Ramsay
AU - Stroud, Catherine B.
AU - Feinstein, Brian A.
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was supported by a grant from National Institutes of Mental Health ( R01 MH063904 ) awarded to Joanne Davila and by funds from Stony Brook University. We gratefully acknowledge the staff of the Relationship Development Center and the families who generously participated in this research. Finally, we also wish to thank Anne Moyer and Rick Heyman for comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.
PY - 2011/10
Y1 - 2011/10
N2 - Because the ability to flexibly experience and appropriately express emotions across a range of developmentally relevant contexts is crucial to adaptive functioning, we examined how adolescent attachment security may be related to more functional emotional behavior during a relationship promoting interaction task. Data were collected from 74 early adolescent girls (Mean age 13.45 years; SD = 0.68; 89% Caucasian) and their primary caregiver. Results indicated that, regardless of the parent's interaction behavior and the level of stress in the parent-adolescent relationship, greater adolescent security was associated with more positive and less negative behavioral displays, including greater positivity, greater coherence of verbal content and affect, less embarrassment, and less emotional dysregulation in response to a situational demand for establishing intimacy with the parent. Implications for encouraging and fostering adolescents' capacity to respond to interpersonal contexts in ways that promote the relationship are discussed.
AB - Because the ability to flexibly experience and appropriately express emotions across a range of developmentally relevant contexts is crucial to adaptive functioning, we examined how adolescent attachment security may be related to more functional emotional behavior during a relationship promoting interaction task. Data were collected from 74 early adolescent girls (Mean age 13.45 years; SD = 0.68; 89% Caucasian) and their primary caregiver. Results indicated that, regardless of the parent's interaction behavior and the level of stress in the parent-adolescent relationship, greater adolescent security was associated with more positive and less negative behavioral displays, including greater positivity, greater coherence of verbal content and affect, less embarrassment, and less emotional dysregulation in response to a situational demand for establishing intimacy with the parent. Implications for encouraging and fostering adolescents' capacity to respond to interpersonal contexts in ways that promote the relationship are discussed.
KW - Adolescence
KW - Attachment
KW - Intimacy
KW - Parent-adolescent interaction
KW - Security
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U2 - 10.1016/j.adolescence.2010.11.006
DO - 10.1016/j.adolescence.2010.11.006
M3 - Article
C2 - 21159373
AN - SCOPUS:80052034468
SN - 0140-1971
VL - 34
SP - 1017
EP - 1024
JO - Journal of Adolescence
JF - Journal of Adolescence
IS - 5
ER -