The Impact of Parental Separation Anxiety on Identity Development in Late Adolescence and Early Adulthood

Abstract

A longitudinal study of first-year college students and seniors was conducted in order to investigate the relationships between parental separation anxiety and adolescent identity development. Data was collected from mothers, fathers, and adolescents in the autumn and again in the spring. Mothers and fathers completed the parental separation anxiety questionnaire with two subscales, Comfort with Secure Base Role, and Anxiety about Adolescent Distancing. Their adolescent children completed the Revised Extended Version of the Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status (EOM-EIS). From hierarchical multiple regressions controlling for Time 1 identity, it appears that mothers’ sense of providing a secure base for their adolescents in college influences their adolescents’identity achievement, whereas fathers’anxiety about distancing has both negative and positive consequences for their adolescents’foreclosure depending on the gender of the adolescent.