Attachment and adolescents’ emotion regulation during a joint problem-solving task with a friend

Abstract

This study looks at adolescents’ emotion regulation patterns during a joint problem-solving situation with a friend, based on data from a longitudinal study. Specifically concurrent attachment representation, as assessed by the Adult Attachment Interview and earlier infant-father and infant-mother attachment patterns, as assessed by the strange situation procedure are used as predictors. A total of 41 adolescents participated in a complex problem-solving situation with their friends and were videotaped during their work. Emotional expression and cooperative and uncooperative, disruptive behaviour were assessed from the videotapes. Each participant completed an emotion self-rating during the task. The results show that the concordance between the two levels of assessment of emotion relates to attachment representation for the emotions sadness and anger. Depending on the intensity of specific emotions, adolescents with insecure attachment representations showed more disruptive behaviours towards their friend. This was also true for adolescents with insecure infant-father attachment patterns. The findings suggest that attachment organisation in adolescence and infancy influences the balance between autonomous and cooperative problem solving between friends.