| It was the purpose of this study to investigate the relational precursors of adolescent identity development. Successful adolescent identity development was predicted to depend upon both the quality of the adolescent's attachment to the parents and the degree of differentiation in the parent-adolescent relationship.;In particular, it was predicted that adolescents who were more securely attached and had more moderate boundaries with their parents would explore their identity with comfort. Those adolescents who were more preoccupied with attachment and had more enmeshed boundaries with their parents would explore their identity with comfort except in those areas in which they felt their parents were particularly invested. Those adolescents who were more dismissing of attachment and had more disengaged boundaries with their parents were predicted to explore their ideological identity with comfort, but either explore their interpersonal identity to a lesser extent or to experience greater discomfort doing so. Finally, the relationship between adolescent identity development and parental divorce was investigated.;Questionnaires were administered to 350 subjects. A subsample of 45 subjects was interviewed, using the Adult Attachment Interview (George, Kaplan, & Main, 1985). These interviews were transcribed and coded by advanced undergraduate students.;The results indicated that, contrary to predictions, being securely attached and having moderate boundaries did not appear to be the optimal combination of attachment and differentiation to facilitate identity exploration. There was evidence to suggest that having more disengaged boundaries with parents, and with the father in particular, may facilitate identity exploration. Being more securely attached did, however, minimize the discomfort that adolescents felt in exploring their identity in most of the identity areas. Adolescents who were either preoccupied with attachment or enmeshed with parents tended to have more difficulty either exploring or feeling comfortable exploring their identities in the areas in which they felt their parents were more invested. Finally, adolescents from divorced families tended to explore their ideological identity more than adolescents from intact families. The relationship between ideological identity exploration and family structure was found to be mediated by the degree to which adolescents were disengaged from their fathers. |
