Publications

The ability to form and maintain relationships with friends and romantic partners is a major develop-mental task for adolescents. Disagreeable youth are likely to struggle with this task, yet little is knownabout how they maintain their oppositional style from adolescence to adulthood. The current studyexamines the long-term implications of disagreeableness in a diverse sample of 164 adolescents assessedrepeatedly across a 10-year period along with their friends and romantic partners. Disagreeableness atage 14 and 15 was assessed in observation with friends. Disagreeableness was then examined as a pre-dictor of both future relationship quality with friends at age 16 and romantic relationships at age 21. Theresults indicate that although disagreeable youth do not report any relationship struggles, both theirfriends and romantic partners see their relationships as being low in quality. Findings suggest a develop-mental process by which disagreeable adolescents maintain their oppositional style through a mecha-nism of relationship blindness, as they simply are unable to see the relationship issues that theirfriends and partners clearly perceive.

This study used a longitudinal, multi-method design to examine whether teens’ perceptions of maternal psychological control predicted lower levels of adolescent autonomy displayed with their mothers and peers over time. Significant predictions from teens’ perceptions of maternal psychological control to teens’ displays of autonomy in maternal and peer relationships were found at age 16 after accounting for adolescent displays of autonomy with mothers and peers at age 13, indicating relative changes in teens’ autonomy displayed with their mother and a close peer over time. Results suggest that the ability to assert one’s autonomy in mid-adolescence may be influenced by maternal behavior early in adolescence, highlighting the importance of parents minimizing psychological control to facilitate autonomy development for teens.

We tested a developmental cascade model of autonomy and relatedness in the progression from parent to friend to romantic relationships across ages 13, 18, and 21. Participants included 184 adolescents (53% female, 58% Caucasian, 29% African American) recruited from a public middle school in Virginia. Parental psychological control at age 13 undermined the development of autonomy and relatedness, predicting relative decreases in autonomy and relatedness with friends between ages 13 and 18 and lower levels of autonomy and relatedness with partners at age 18. These cascade effects extended into adult friendships and romantic relationships, with autonomy and relatedness with romantic partners at age 18 being a strong predictor of autonomy and relatedness with both friends and partners at age 21.

In this study we consider whether bullies and victims are disliked by most of their classmates, or whether antipathy is concentrated among the occupants of these roles. Antipathy nominations were collected from a community sample of 699 Finnish adolescents (14 to 17 years of age), who described their own bullying and victimization, as well as problem behaviors and school engagement. Victimization was associated with antipathy, but the strength of the association differed according to characteristics of the nominator. Victimization was related to antipathy when the nominator was high on bullying but not low. Similarly, bullying was related to antipathy when the nominator was high on victimization, but not low. The findings indicate that although bullies and victims have elevated mean levels of rejection, they are not disliked by most peers but rather by those who report themselves to be high on these attributes.

Maternal and paternal psychological control, peer attitudes, and the interaction of psychological control and peer attitudes at age 13 were examined as predictors of risky sexual behavior before age 16 in a community sample of 181 youth followed from age 13 to 16. Maternal psychological control moderated the link between peer attitudes and sexual behavior. Peer acceptance of early sex predicted greater risky sexual behaviors, but only for teens whose mothers engaged in high levels of psychological control. Paternal psychological control demonstrated the same moderating effect for girls; for boys, however, high levels of paternal control predicted risky sex regardless of peer attitudes. Results are consistent with the theory that peer influences do not replace parental influences with regard to adolescent sexual behavior; rather, parental practices continue to serve an important role either directly forecasting sexual behavior or moderating the link between peer attitudes and sexual behavior.

The long-term import of a fundamental challenge of adolescent social development—establishing oneself as a desirable peer companion while avoiding problematic behaviors often supported within peer groups—was examined in a community sample of 184 adolescents, followed from ages 13 to 23, along with parents, peers, and romantic partners. The dialectical nature of this challenge appeared in findings that autonomy vis-a-vis peer influences predicted both long-term success avoiding problematic behavior, but also more difficulty establishing strong adult friendships. Conversely, being a desirable peer companion in adolescence predicted more positive adult relationships, but also greater alcohol use. Adolescents who established themselves as both desirable companions and as autonomous vis-à-vis peers were rated as most successful by their parents at age 23.

Pseudomature behavior—ranging from minor delinquency to precocious romantic involvement— is widely viewed as a nearly normative feature of adolescence. When such behavior occurs early in adolescence, however, it was hypothesized to reflect a misguided overemphasis upon impressing peers and was considered likely to predict long-term adjustment problems. In a multimethod, multi-reporter study following a community sample of 184 adolescents from age 13 to 23, early adolescent pseudomature behavior was linked cross-sectionally to a heightened desire for peer popularity and to short-term success with peers. Longitudinal results, however, supported the study’s central hypothesis: Early adolescent pseudomature behavior predicted long-term difficulties in close relationships, as well as significant problems with alcohol and substance use, and elevated levels of criminal behavior.

The long-term social sequelae of adolescent depressive symptoms were examined in a multimethod, multi-reporter study of a diverse community sample of 179 adolescents followed from age 14 to 24. Even mild to moderate levels of early adolescent depressive symptoms strongly predicted loneliness, lower maternal relationship quality, and problematic interactions with romantic partners in adulthood, even after accounting for prior levels of social functioning and concurrent levels of adult depressive symptoms. Predictions were partially mediated via late adolescent avoidance of social interactions and poor maternal relationship quality. Results are interpreted as suggesting the potential impact of depressive symptoms on core tasks of adolescent social development, with potential implications for the need for treatment of even mild symptoms and their social concomitants.

This study investigated whether insecure adolescent attachment organization (i.e., preoccupied and dismissing) longitudinally predicted self- and peer-reported externalizing behavior in emerging adulthood. Secondarily, maladaptive coping strategies were examined for their potential role in mediating the relationship between insecure attachment and future externalizing behaviors. Target participants (N = 184) were given the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) at age 14 and reinterviewed seven and eight years later with their closest peer. Qualities of both preoccupied and dismissing attachment organization predicted self-reported externalizing behaviors in emerging adulthood eight years later, but only preoccupation was predictive of close-peer reports of emerging adult externalizing behavior. Maladaptive coping strategies only mediated the relationship between a dismissing stance toward attachment and future self-reported externalizing behaviors. Understanding the role of coping and emotional regulation in attachment may help us to understand the unique aspects of both dismissing and preoccupied stances toward attachment.