Attachment to parents and friends as a context for development of self-concept in adolescence: The personality traits as mediators

Abstract

The aim of the research is to study developmental relations between attachment to mother, father and friends and dimensions of adolescents' self-concept. More specifically, we examine if this relation is direct or mediated by some personality construct. A sample of 878 students (13 and 16 years old) from Belgrade urban lower secondary and upper secondary schools participated in this research. Participants completed ECR for mother, father and friend; Self-perception profile for adolescents and NEOFFI. The results have indicated that dimensions of attachment are correlated with dimensions of self-concept, and that they can explain 13% of variance in dimensions of self-concept. When the personality traits are introduced as mediators, attachment dimensions explain only 4.5% of variance in self-concept. The quality of attachment relations with parents is not related to adolescents' self-concept, while attachment to friends is correlated with social dimensions of self-concept. Hence, this study suggests that adolescents with particular parental attachment styles differ according to their self-concept profiles, but that peer attachment is important for adolescents' social self. Beside that, this study reveals significant gender differences: relation between parental and peer attachment and adolescents' self-concepts is not the same for boys and girls.