Trait and social influences in the links among adolescent attachment, depressive symptoms, and coping

Attachment insecurity and maladaptive coping are associated with depression in adolescence; however, it is unclear whether these links primarily reflect stable individual differences among teens (trait influences), experiential differences in their interactions with relationship partners (social influences) or both. In this study, teens (ages 14-18; N = 150) completed questionnaires to assess their attachment security, depressive symptoms, and coping strategies with different attachment figures. Measures were completed three times, based on experiences with a maternal figure, paternal figure, and closest peer. Generalizability analyses were used to separate each construct into trait and social influence components. Next, multivariate g correlations were computed to examine the correlations among the constructs for the trait component as well as the social component. Correlation magnitudes differed depending on whether the trait or social influence components were examined.