Title

Stories Of Parents And Self: Relations To Adolescent Attachment

Keywords

Adolescent; Attachment; Gender differences; Intergenerational narratives

Abstract

How individuals construct narratives involving attachment figures (e.g., parents) should reflect their representation of those individuals as either comforting or unsupportive (Bowlby, 1969). Similarly, how individuals talk about parents' childhood experiences may also reflect their attachment representation. Sixty-five 13-to 16-year-old middle-class, diverse adolescents narrated 2 stories each from mother's and father's childhood, and 2 positive and negative personal experiences, all coded for coherence and emotions. As a measure of attachment, adolescents completed the Attachment Script Assessment, coded for attachment security (H. S. Waters & Rodrigues-Doolabh, 2001). Pearson's correlations indicate secure adolescents told coherent and emotionally expressive narratives about mothers' childhood but not fathers'; narratives about mothers' experiences appear important for adolescents' attachment. Secure adolescents also told thematically coherent negative but not positive personal narratives. Thus, secure adolescents do not tell all narratives coherently and emotionally; in this study, the relation between narratives and attachment is specific to intergenerational narratives. © 2013 American Psychological Association.

Publication Date

11-1-2013

Publication Title

Developmental Psychology

Volume

49

Issue

11

Number of Pages

2047-2056

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032023

Socpus ID

84887526498 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84887526498

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