Article2008

Types of individuation in relation to parents: Predictors and outcomes

57 citations0/0 files storedInternational Journal of Behavioral Development

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development Family Dynamics and Relationships Psychosocial Factors Impacting Youth

Abstract

Individuation in relation to father and mother is one of the key developmental tasks of adolescence, and has been conceptualized as gaining autonomy while maintaining relatedness to parents. Research on high-conflict, divorced and step-families suggests that specific stressors in these family types may compromise successful individuation by undermining relatedness, triggering insecurities or leading to early independence. This study takes a typological approach (1) seeking to identify distinct patterns of adolescents' relationships to mother and residential father figure (biological or stepfather), (2) testing the effects of family structure and dynamics, and (3) investigating links between type of individuation and adolescents' adjustment. The sample consisted of N = 649 adolescents in Germany aged between 10 and 20 years who lived in nuclear, single-mother or stepfather families. The Munich Individuation Test of Adolescence (MITA) was used to assess individuation. For n = 473 adolescents data on individuation in relation to the biological or stepfather were available. Cluster analyses resulted in three types of individuation regarding mothers and four types regarding fathers. In particular, children from (nuclear) families with high interparental conflict were at risk for an insecure ambivalent relationship. Securely individuated youth showed significantly better adjustment in a variety of outcomes.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 57 citations exist upstream.

References

1991Attachment styles among young adults: A test of a four-category model.1981The Stress Process 1985Security in Infancy, Childhood, and Adulthood: A Move to the Level of Representation 1970Attachment and Loss. Vol. I. Attachment.2000The Consequences of Divorce for Adults and Children 1991Patterns of Competence and Adjustment among Adolescents from Authoritative, Authoritarian, Indulgent, and Neglectful Families 2000Parental Monitoring: A Reinterpretation 1985Children's perceptions of the personal relationships in their social networks.

Cited by

2020A meta-analysis on interparental conflict, parenting, and child adjustment in divorced families: Examining mediation using meta-analytic structural equation models 2012Separation-individuation of Portuguese emerging adults in relation to parents and to the romantic partner

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.