The role of primary emotions in separation-individuation during emerging adulthood

Separation-individuation (S-I) in relation to parents is a core developmental process that unfolds during infancy/toddlerhood (primary S-I) and adolescence/ emerging adulthood (second S-I) and relates to psychological functioning across several domains. While the outcomes of this process are most commonly explained by the quality of parent-child relationships, the role of child temperament/personality is rarely considered.

We examined the role of emerging adults' primary emotions on five aspects of S-I in relation to mother and father, as captured by the Individuation Test for Emerging Adults-Short. The sample consisted of 446 emerging adults (58.7% females, 41.3% males), predominantly students.

Hierarchical linear regressions suggested a significant contribution of the six primary emotions (SEEKING, FEAR, ANGER, SADNESS, CARE, and PLAY) across the aspects of S-I (seeking parental support, connectedness, perceived parental intrusiveness, self-reliance, and fear of disappointing the parent), over and beyond the relevant demographic variables (age, gender, living arrangement). Differential associations showed consistent links of SEEKING with self-reliance, of CARE and low SADNESS with both support seeking and connectedness, of SADNESS with perceived parental intrusiveness, and of FEAR with fear of disappointing parents. A few inconsistent relations were likely due to somewhat different roles of mothers and fathers in the caregiving context.

Overall, our results provide new evidence supporting the idea that individual differences in primary emotional systems may play a distinct and meaningful role in affecting aspects of the S-I process in emerging adulthood.