Chinese Adolescent Attachment To Parents And Friends In Relation To Two Dimensions Of Self-Esteem: A Developmental Perspective

Although ample research has examined the relationship of attachment to global self-esteem (e.g., Collins & Read, 1990; Griffin & Bartholomew, 1994), rare research has looked into the influence of specific attachment relationship on two dimensions of self-esteem, i.e. self-liking and self-competence. The main purpose of this research is to explore the relative influence of adolescents' perceptions of their attachment relationships with their mothers, fathers, and friends on two dimensions of self-esteem. Besides, mis research also attempted to investigate the developmental changes of adolescents' perceptions of their specific attachment relationships, and of the global self-esteem and its two dimensions during adolescence. 585 Chinese adolescents were sampled from junior high school, high school and college hi Mainland China, ranging from 11 to 23 years old. The major findings were as follows:1. Adolescent attachment: (1) Children's attachment to mothers, fathers and friends started to differentiate since adolescence, which began earlier for girls man for boys. (2) From early to late adolescence, girls' perceptions of their attachment relationship with their mothers, fathers and friends were all higher than boys', reflecting the higher involvement of girls in their interpersonal relationships. (3) Peer attachment remained stable over time, while parental attachment changed during adolescence, with a decline in quality of these relationships during middle school but an increment during college. (4) The patterns of developmental change hi attachment relationships during adolescence were influenced by gender of the attachment figure and by gender of the adolescent, with quality of attachment to same-sex parent decreasing gradually and linearly whereas quality of attachment to different-sex parent decreasing erratically and nonlinearly. (5) For both genders, quality of maternal attachment was significantly higher than that of paternal attachment.2. Adolescent self-esteem: (1) Chinese adolescents showed higher self-liking than self-competence, regardless of their gender and developmental period. (2) Of two dimensions of global self-esteem, self-liking was relatively stable during adolescence while self-competence changed, with high school students showing the lowest level. (3) For global self-esteem, score on Rosenberg's Self-esteem Scale showed stability whereas score on Self-liking and Self-competence Scale varied significantly during adolescence, with middle adolescence showing the lowest level of global self-esteem.3. The influence of specific attachment relationships on self-esteem: Parents and friendscontributed differently to two dimensions of self-esteem during different developmental periods. (1) For early adolescents, attachments to. both parents and friends contributed significantly to self-liking and self-competence, but the way of which was influenced by gender. For boys, fathers exerted the strongest influence on self-liking man mothers and friends did, and friends exerted the strongest influence on self-competence man fathers and mothers did. For girls, mothers exerted the strongest influence on both self-liking and self-competence than fathers and friends did. (2) For middle adolescents, both mothers and fathers showed no significant contribution to adolescents' self-liking and self-competence but friends did. (3) For late adolescents, parents and friends contributed significantly to both self-liking and self-competence, but the way of which was influenced by gender. For boys, mothers exerted the strongest influence on self-liking than fathers and friends did, and fathers exerted the strongest influence on self-competence than mothers and friends did. For girls, parents exerted a stronger influence on both self-liking and self-competence than friends did.Taken together, the present research revealed the differential impact of Chinese adolescent specific attachment relationships on their self-esteem, especially on self-liking and self-competence, which, in the perspective of development and...