Urban Adolescents' Parent And Peer Attachment: A Developmental Perspective

Two questionnaires were administered to 527 students through 1 st to 6th grade in a common middle school in Nanjing, and an additional semi-structured interview were administered to other 5 junior students from a local famous university, combined to probe into the developmental characteristics of parent and peer attachment in adolescence. The main conclusions were as follows:1) Significant differences were found in the distributions of the four patterns of adolEscEnts' attachments to the three significant others, i.e. their mother, father and peer.2) Significant differences concerning their schooling grades were found in adolescents' attachments to the three significant others, female adolescents with higher level than that of males.3) During the whole middle school period, adolescents' attachments were significantly different. The students in grade 3 got significantly the lowest levels concerning each attachment figure.4) There was significantly high correlation between father and mother attachments, and significantly low correlations between parent attachments and peer attachment.5) Secure attachments to both parents led to the highest level of peer attachment in adolescence, while insecure attachments to both parents led to the lowest level of peer attachment.