Publications

This study examined attachment organization as a moderator of the link between the quality of the adolescents’ current friendships and delinquent behavior. Data were gathered from a moderately atrisk sample of 71 ethnically and socioeconomically diverse adolescents. Results revealed a moderating effect of attachment organization (as assessed by the AAI) such that strong and supportive friendships were linked to lower levels of delinquency, but only when adolescents’ attachment organization reflected an orientation toward heightened attention to attachment relationships (via preoccupation or via clear lack of dismissal of attachment). These results suggest that attachment organization plays an important role in delineating the conditions under which the qualities of social relationships are likely to be linked to important psychosocial outcomes.

This study assessed the hypothesis that popularity in adolescence takes on a twofold role, both marking high levels of concurrent psychosocial adaptation, but also predicting increases over time in both positive and negative behaviors sanctioned by peer norms. This hypothesis was tested with multi-method, longitudinal data obtained on a diverse community sample of 185 adolescents. Sociometric popularity data were examined in relation to data from interview-based assessments of attachment security and ego development, observations of mother-adolescent interactions, and repeated self- and peer-report assessments of delinquency and alcohol use. Results indicated that popular adolescents displayed higher concurrent levels of ego development, secure attachment and more adaptive interactions with mothers and best friends. Longitudinal analyses supported a “popularity-socialization” hypothesis, however, in which popular adolescents were more likely to increase in behaviors that receive approval in the peer group (e.g., minor levels of drug use and delinquency) and decrease in behaviors unlikely to be well-received by peers (e.g., hostile behavior with peers).

This study examined whether attachment theory could be used to shed light on the often high degree of discordance between self- and observer-ratings of behavioral functioning and symptomatology. Interview-based assessments of attachment organization, using the Adult Attachment Interview, were examined as predictors of the lack of agreement between self- and other-reports of behavioral and emotional problems among 176 moderately at-risk adolescents. Lack of agreement was measured in terms of concordance of adolescent- and parent- or close friend-report on equivalent measures of behavioral and emotional adjustment. Insecure-dismissing attachment was linked to less agreement in absolute terms between self- and mother-reports of externalizing symptoms, and between adolescent- and close friend-reports of behavioral conduct. Insecure-preoccupied attachment was associated with higher levels of adolescent reporting of internalizing and externalizing symptoms relative to parent-reports of adolescent symptomatology. The findings suggest that attachment organization may be one factor that accounts for individual differences in the degree of discordance between self- and other-reports of symptoms in adolescence.

Within-family covariation between interparental hostility and adolescent behavior across three interactions over a 2-year period was explored in a sample that included 37 typical adolescents and 35 adolescents recently hospitalized for psychiatric difficulties. More interparental hostility across the three interactions was associated with more adolescent hostility and more positive engagement (at a trend level) regardless of psychiatric background. Parent-to-child hostility in each interaction mediated the link for adolescent hostility but not for positive adolescent engagement. Emotion regulation capacities and age were linked to variability in adolescents’ behavior in the presence of interparental conflict. In interactions with more interparental hostility, adolescents with greater capacity to tolerate negative affect were more likely to show increased positive engagement, and adolescents who were better able to modulate their emotional expression were less likely to show increased hostility. Covariation between interparental and adolescent hostility across the three family interactions decreased as the adolescent aged. These findings are consistent with the theory that exposure to interparental hostility is emotionally disequilibrating, and that adolescent responses may reflect differences in emotion regulation and other developmentally based capacities. Gender and variations across families in overall levels of hostile parenting were also linked with adolescent behavior in the presence of interparental hostility.

Background  Adolescents with early psychiatric hospitalization are likely to be at a significant risk for long-term difficulties.

Objective  To examine early adulthood outcomes of psychiatrically hospitalized adolescents.

Design  Inception cohort recruited from 1978 to 1981 and observed until 2002.

Setting  Northeastern United States.

Participants  Adolescents (aged 12-15 years) from 2 matched cohorts were recruited and assessed repeatedly across 20 years: 70 psychiatrically hospitalized youths and 76 public high school students.

Main Outcome Measures  Death, emotional distress, high school completion, and educational attainment.

Results  Psychiatrically hospitalized youths were significantly more likely to die and to report higher levels of emotional distress. Hospitalized youths were significantly less likely to graduate from high school and complete college and graduate school.

Conclusions  The association between psychiatric symptoms sufficient to result in psychiatric hospitalization during adolescence and later mortality, emotional distress, high school completion, and educational attainment is striking. Further study is needed to identify and understand linkages between adolescent psychiatric impairment and decrements in adult functioning, particularly the processes that may underlie these linkages. Increasing school completion and educational attainment among hospitalized youths may minimize decrements in adult adaptation.

This study examined both continuity and familial, intrapsychic, and environmental predictors of change in adolescent attachment security across a two-year period from mid- to late-adolescence. Assessments included the Adult Attachment Interview, observed mother-adolescent interactions, test-based data, and adolescent self-reports obtained from an ethnically and socio-economically diverse sample of moderately at-risk adolescents interviewed at ages 16 and 18. Substantial stability in security was identified. Beyond this stability, however, relative declines in attachment security were predicted by adolescents’ enmeshed, overpersonalizing behavior with their mothers, depressive symptoms, and poverty status. Results suggest that while security may trend upward for non-stressed adolescents, stressors that overwhelm the capacity for affect regulation and that are not easily assuaged by parents predict relative declines in security. over time.

In this report, we drew on data from an ongoing longitudinal study that began in 1978 (Hauser, Powers, Noam, Jacobson, Weiss, & Folansbee, 1984). Focusing on late, young-adult life among individuals who were psychiatrically hospitalized during adolescence, we examined markers of resilience empirically defined in terms of adult success and well-being. The study includes a demographically similar group recruited from a public high school. Major goals were to (a) develop preliminary models of adaptive functioning among adults in their 30s, (b) examine the extent to which adults with histories of serious mental disorders can be characterized by these models, and (c) explore predictors of successful adult lives from indicators of individuals' psychosocial adjustment at age 25. Results showed significant cohort effects on indexes of adaptive functioning, especially for men. Findings suggest that social relations as well as self-views of competence and relatedness play important roles in characterizing adjustment during the adult years. In addition, indexes of psychosocial adjustment as well as symptoms of psychiatric distress and hard drug use at age 25 made a difference in adult social functioning and well-being, providing hints of possible mechanisms likely to facilitate the ability to “bounce back” after a difficult adolescence.

Adolescent ego-development trajectories were related to close-relationship outcomes in young adulthood. An adolescent sample completed annual measures of ego development from ages 14 through 17. The authors theoretically determined and empirically traced five ego-development trajectories reflecting stability or change. At age 25, the sample completed a close-relationship interview and consented for two peers to rate the participants’ego resiliency and hostility. Participants who followed the profound-arrest trajectory in adolescence reported more mundane sharing of experiences, more impulsive or egocentric conflict-resolution tactics, and less mature interpersonal understanding in their young adult relationships, and their young adult peers described these participants as more hostile. Participants who attained or maintained higher levels of ego development in adolescence reported more complex sharing of experiences, more collaborative conflict-resolution strategies, and greater interpersonal understanding, and their young adult peers rated them as less hostile and as more flexible.

This study examined links between emotion expression in couple interactions and marital quality and stability. Core aspects of emotion expression in marital interactions were identified with the use of naïve observational coding by multiple raters. Judges rated 47 marital discussions with 15 emotion descriptors. Coders’ pooled ratings yielded good reliability on 4 types of emotion expression: hostility, distress, empathy, and affection. These 4 types were linked with concurrent marital satisfaction and interviewer ratings of marital adjustment as well as with marital stability at a 5-year follow-up. The study also examined the extent to which naïve judges’ ratings of emotion expression correspond to “expert” ratings using the Specific Affect Coding System (SPAFF). The unique advantages of naïve coding of emotion expression in marital interaction are discussed.

This study sought to identify ways in which adolescent attachment security, as assessed via the Adult Attachment Interview, is manifest in qualities of the secure base provided by the mother– adolescent relationship. Assessments included data coded from mother–adolescent interactions, test-based data, and adolescent self-reports obtained from an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse sample of moderately at-risk 9th and 10th graders. This study found several robust markers of adolescent attachment security in the mother–adolescent relationship. Each of these markers was found to contribute unique variance to explaining adolescent security, and in combination, they accounted for as much as 40% of the raw variance in adolescent security. These findings suggest that security is closely connected to the workings of the mother–adolescent relationship via a secure-base phenomenon, in which the teen can explore independence in thought and speech from the secure base of a maternal relationship characterized by maternal attunement to the adolescent and maternal supportiveness.