Introduction to the Special Section

Abstract

There is now a general consensus that over the past two decades, social, economic, and demographic changes have altered the life course trajectories of young people between their early teens and late twenties (Arnett, 2006). In addition, the rising prevalence of psychopathology in adolescence and young adulthood has received increased attention (Fombonne, 1998). This has lead to efforts to identify and understand the potential risk factors and sequelae of psychopathology in the transition to adulthood. Social experiences involving parents, close friends, and romantic partners are often important in understanding the development of internalizing and externalizing problems. The contributions in this Special Issue therefore focus on the interactions within and between family and peer systems as determinants of the psychopathology in adolescence and young adulthood. From early adolescence onwards, many significant transformations in close relationships occur. Parent‐adolescent relationships, adolescents’ relationships with friends and romantic partners, and parents’ marital relationships show obvious changes (Hartup, 1996; Lee, Seccombe, & Shehan, 1991). During adolescence, the network of close relationships is restructured. Friendship relationships become more intimate, mutual, and reciprocal, and friends gradually assume a more central position in the young person’s relational networks that was formerly occupied by the parents. As the level of closeness between adolescents and their parents steadily decreases, the level of closeness and intimacy with friends and romantic partners increases. In particular, this increasing involvement in romantic partnerships often sparks conflict between the adolescent and the parents. However, high levels of conflict between adolescents and their parents typically decrease, an indication that the levels of power between parents and adolescents have become more balanced. Nevertheless, the challenges of parenting an adolescent often result in changes in parenting behavior, which may negatively affect the quality of the parents’ marital relationship. Although studies on changing parent‐adolescent relations and the importance of peer relationships have a long tradition in developmental psychology (Hartup & Stevens, 1997; Steinberg, 2001), interest in the study of romantic development has emerged only recently (Furman, Brown, & Feiring, 1999). Furthermore, despite the changing patterns of close relationships during adolescence, few studies have investigated how changes in these diverse relationship types impact overall