Parenting Journal · Volume 1 · Issue 1 · Licensed source edition
The Impact of Adolescents’ Attachment to Peers and Parents on Aggressive and Prosocial Behavior: A Short-Term Longitudinal Study
Originally published 2020-12-23 · Frontiers in Psychology
Frontiers Media SA · DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.592144 ↗
Editorial reading guide · Kindness
How are parent and peer attachments linked with prosocial behavior over a school term?
Examines parent and peer attachment in relation to prosocial behavior and aggression. It helps parents see friendship relationships as part of adolescents’ social world without interpreting attachment as the only influence on kindness.
Who was studied?
Three hundred seventy-five students from three secondary schools in central Portugal, assessed four months apart.
Age / stage: 15–19 years
Read with three questions
- Which associations were concurrent and which extended across four months?
- How strongly did earlier behavior predict later behavior?
- What differences were found between mother, father and peer attachment?
Keep the limits in view
A short follow-up, self-report measures and a limited school sample constrain inference. Several reported pathways are concurrent, and the design does not establish that attachment changes cause prosocial behavior.
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Original authorship, publication date, journal and DOI are preserved. This issue’s TRICK placement and reading questions are editorial additions, not claims made by the original authors.
Paula Vagos; Lénia Carvalhais (2020). The Impact of Adolescents’ Attachment to Peers and Parents on Aggressive and Prosocial Behavior: A Short-Term Longitudinal Study Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.592144
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