Attachment and Autonomy as Predictors of the Development of Social Skills and Delinquency During Midadolescence

This study examined adolescent attachment organization as a predictor of the development of social skills and delinquent behavior during midadolescence. Delinquent activity and skill levels were assessed for 117 moderately at-risk adolescents at ages 16 and 18, and maternal and adolescent attachment organization and autonomy in interactions were assessed at age 16. Adolescent attachment security predicted relative increases in social skills from age 16 to 18, whereas an insecure–preoccupied attachment organization predicted increasing delinquency during this period. In addition, preoccupied teens interacting with highly autonomous mothers showed greater relative decreases in skill levels and increases in delinquent activity over time, suggesting a heightened risk for deviance among preoccupied teens who may be threatened by growing autonomy in adolescent–parent interactions. John Bowlby’s (1969/1982) attachment theory has led to great strides in understanding the development of social behavior and psychopathology in infancy and early childhood, but the theory is only just beginning to be applied to adolescence. A broad array of findings including demonstrated continuities in attachment organization across the lifespan and across generations (Benoit & Parker, 1994; Hamilton, 2000; M. J. Ward & Carlson, 1995; Waters, Merrick, Treboux, Crowell, & Albersheim, 2000), longterm predictions from attachment organization to later psychosocial functioning (L. A. Sroufe, 1983; Urban, Carlson, Egeland, & Sroufe, 1991), and the possibility of altering attachment organization with intervention (van den Boom, 1994) suggest that attachment theory may potentially shed valuable light on adolescent social development and deviant behavior. This study examined two distinct roles of attachment organization in relation to developing social skills and delinquency during midadolescence: first, the role of direct predictor of changing levels of social skills and delinquent behavior, and second, the role of moderator of the link between the normative development of adolescent autonomy and adolescent skill development and deviance. In adolescence, security of attachment organization is evaluated with the Adult Attachment Interview (Main & Goldwyn, 1998), which assesses the internal coherence of the adolescent’s current attachment-related memories, affects, and cognitions and the adolescent’s realistic, positive expectations about attachment relationships. Adolescents are classified as “secure/autonomous” when they are able to describe attachment experiences in ways that are coherent, internally consistent, and appropriately balanced in recounting positive and negative features of those experiences. Attachment organization for insecure adolescents may fall into one of several groups. 1 Adolescents who are insecure and preoc