Transfer of Early to Late Adolescents’ Attachment Figures in a Multicohort Six-Wave Study: Person- and Variable-Oriented Approaches

Abstract

Although Bowlby proposed that adolescence is a major developmental period to transfer their attachment figures from parents to other people, no comprehensive longitudinal study on attachment transfer from early to late adolescence exists. This study employed 215 early to late adolescents between ages 11 and 18 years ([Formula: see text] = 14.02, SD = 2.05 at Wave 1), using a six-wave 2-year longitudinal design with four different cohorts: 5th, 7th, 9th, and 11th grades. Both person- and variable-oriented analyses revealed that once adolescents have transferred their attachment figures from parents to peers, they were unlikely to revert to parents in the future. The transfer of attachment from parents to friends is more prevalent in early adolescence than in late adolescence. However, throughout adolescence, friends were not considered to be exclusive attachment figures, whereas parents and romantic partners were. Finally, many adolescents spent 4 months or fewer until their romantic partner became the primary attachment figure.