Abstract |
The present thesis attempts to explore the attachment in teenage friendships. More specifically, the aim of the study is to present the possible link among the parental and friendly attachments. Additionally, the thesis aims to clarify the quality level of a teenage friendship, as well as to identify the dominant person who the teenager communicates and interacts with , in the context of attachment. Also, an answer to the question whether the type of bond between teenagers and parents defines the quality of teenage friendship is seeked. All in all, the goal of the research is a better understanding of the influence which family and friends have on the adolescent and the way of assurance, as much as possible, of his proper social relationships.
For the actualization of this study we relied on the theory of the attachment, as expressed by Bowlby (1969/1982•1973•1980) and Ainsworth (1979•1989•1991), but additionally by other scholars too. According to the theory, the first relationships that a person establishes, even from its infancy, affect its afterwards interpersonal relationships and define them, due to the attachment working models, which stay almost constant over time.
In the survey participated 203 students of the first and third grade of high-school, in the district of Heraklion, to whom were given two questionnaires translated in Greek, Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment - IPPA (Armsden and Greenberg,1987) and Shorten version of friendship qualities questionnaire revised - SV-FQQ-R (Nangle, Erdley, Newman, Mason and Carpenter, 2003). The analyses of the data showed that there is a connection between the type of attachment (secure-insecure) of the adolescents with the three attachment figures (mother, father, friends). In addition, there was an interaction between the types of attachment, that adolescents developed with their father and their friends. Moreover, the mother’s figure was the one that gathered the highest percentages in the secure attachment with the adolescents. Additionally, the attachment with all three figures had the ability to predict positively the quality of friendship. Girls rated more favorably their friendships than boys, while age only affected the attachment of the father and friend figures. In particular, participants in the early adolescence ages had higher rates of secure attachment with the father figure, in comparison with those in middle adolescence ages. On the opposite, the secure attachment with their friends’ figures seemed to prevail in the middle puberty compared to early puberty.
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