week 11

Chapter 10: Intimacy

Chapter Review

1. Understand the difference between intimacy and sexuality.

2. Describe the differences between the friendships of children and those of adolescents.

3. Describe how Sullivan’s theory of interpersonal development both builds on and deviates from prior theories of adolescent intimacy.

4. Understand the perspective of attachment theory and how it pertains to the development of intimacy during adolescence.

5. Describe the changes in the level of intimacy and its expression/display in adolescent friendships.

6. Understand the relative changes in parent and peer targets of intimacy, as well as changes in other targets of intimacy.

7. Explain the dynamics underlying friendships with a person of another sex and the age-related changes in cross-sex friendships.

8. Describe the function and impact of dating during adolescence.

9. Describe the possible causes and effects of negative intimate relationships.

Key Terms

adult attachment interview

anxious–avoidant attachment

anxious–resistant attachment

attachment

corumination

disorganized attachment

intergenerational transmission of violence

internal working model

LGBTQ youth

platonic relationships

reaffiliation motive

rejection sensitivity

secure attachment

sexual minority youth

social support

Chapter Notes

I. INTIMACY AS AN ADOLESCENT ISSUE

A. During adolescence, remarkable changes take place in our capacity to form close relationships with other people and, consequently, in the types of relationships we form. Adolescents’ relationships are closer, more personal, more involved, and more emotionally charged than children’s. Most researchers draw a distinction between intimacy and sexuality. Intimacy refers to the development of relationships characterized by self-disclosure, trust, and concern (“caring,” “daring,” and “sharing”). Individuals can be intimate without being sexual.

B. Intimacy is an important concern throughout most of the life span. It is not until adolescence, however, that truly intimate relationships—relationships characterized by openness, honesty, self-disclosure, and trust—emerge. Another reason for the importance of intimacy during adolescence concerns the changing nature of the adolescence’s social world—the increasing importance of peers in general, and during late and middle adolescence, the increasing importance of other-sex peers in particular. The growth of intimacy, a central feature of adolescent psychosocial development, can be traced to the fundamental biological, cognitive, and social changes of the era.

C. Puberty and the Development of Intimacy: The link between puberty and intimacy is obvious: Changes in sexual impulses at puberty provoke interest in sex, which leads to the development of romantic relationships. With romance and sexuality come new issues and concerns requiring serious, intimate discussions.

D. Cognitive Change and the Development of Intimacy: Compared to children, adolescents have more sophisticated conceptions of social relationships, better communication skills, and more self-awareness. These developments permit adolescents to establish and maintain relationships with greater empathy, self-disclosure, and sensitivity; they also contribute to adolescents’ feelings of loneliness if they perceive themselves as socially isolated.

E. Changes in Social Roles and the Development of Intimacy: The behavioral independence that often accompanies the transition into adolescence provides greater opportunities for adolescents to be alone with their friends, engaged in intimate discussion, either in person or online. Moreover, the recognition of adolescents as “near adults” may prompt their parents and other adults to confide in them and turn to them for support. Finally, changes in the structure of schools during early adolescence—often giving younger teenagers more contact with older ones—may promote new types of peer relationships.

II. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ADOLESCENT INTIMACY

A. Sullivan’s Theory of Interpersonal Development: Harry Stack Sullivan emphasized the social aspects of development, and his theory focuses on transformations in the adolescent’s relationship with others.

B. Stages of Interpersonal Needs: According to Sullivan, as children develop, different interpersonal needs surface that lead to either feelings of security (when the needs are satisfied) or feelings of anxiety (when the needs are frustrated). Sullivan charted a developmental progression of needs. Sullivan viewed psychosocial development as cumulative: The frustrations and satisfactions individuals experience during earlier periods affect their later relationships and developing sense of identity. When important interpersonal transitions arise, having a solid foundation of security in past relationships aids in the successful negotiation of the transition.

C. Interpersonal Development During Adolescence: During preadolescence, the need for intimacy emerges and is typically satisfied through same-sex, not other-sex, friendships. During early adolescence, this need is integrated with sexual impulses and desires, and the focus of the adolescents’ interpersonal concerns is redirected toward other-sex peers (when Sullivan was writing, homosexuality was considered abnormal, and like other writers of his era, Sullivan equated normal sexual development with the development of heterosexual relationships). The overarching challenge of adolescence, according to Sullivan, is to integrate an established need for intimacy with an emerging need for sexual contact in a way that does not lead to excessive anxiety.

D. Attachment Theory: Today, a different theoretical perspective guides the study of intimate relationships in adolescence, one that draws on theories of the development of the attachment relationship during infancy. In many ways, the basic ideas developed by Sullivan were maintained, but a different perspective and vocabulary have come to dominate contemporary theory and research on adolescents’ intimate relationships.

E. Attachment in Intimacy: According to attachment theorists, intimacy during adolescence must be examined in relation to the individual’s history of close relationships and, in particular, the individual’s infant–caregiver attachments. A secure attachment between infant and caregiver is characterized by trust; an anxious–avoidant attachment is characterized by indifference on the part of the infant toward the caregiver; an anxious–resistant attachment is characterized by ambivalence. Children who develop a disorganized attachment, which is characterized by the absence of normal attachment behavior, are most at risk of psychological problems.

F. Does Infant Attachment Predict Adolescent Intimacy? Some theorists have argued that the initial attachment relationship forms the basis for the model of interpersonal relationships that we employ throughout our life, known as the internal working model. Individuals who enjoyed a secure attachment relationship during infancy will have a more positive and healthy internal working model of relationships during adolescence, whereas individuals who were anxiously attached as infants will have a less positive one. A secure internal working model permits the individual to enter more satisfying intimate relationships in adolescence and adulthood. Those who have emerged from infancy with an insecure attachment may be more sensitive to being rejected (rejection sensitivity). Interestingly, brain imaging studies have suggested that there may be biological underpinnings to how individuals respond to rejection. A second reason for the continued importance of early attachment relationships during adolescence is that interpersonal development is cumulative: What happens during infancy affects what happens in early childhood, which affects what happens in middle childhood, and so on.

G. Attachment in Adolescence: Research has attempted to understand the parent–adolescent relationship by using a retrospective measure called the adult attachment interview. The interview focuses on individuals’ recollections of their early attachment experiences and obtains information on the ways in which the individual recounts their childhood history. Individuals are typically coded into “secure,” “dismissing,” or “preoccupied” categories. Secure adolescents have the healthiest relationships with parents, peers, and romantic partners and demonstrate the most social competence and best adjustment; individuals with dismissive or preoccupied attachment profiles are more likely to show a range of emotional and behavioral problems in adolescence (e.g., depression, anxiety, delinquency). Additionally, attachments are generally highly stable over the adolescent years; it can change, however, if adolescents are living in dysfunctional family situations or under high amounts of stress. Early attachment security is not something that protects individuals from psychological problems forever but, rather, a psychological advantage that increases the probability of developing in healthy ways. It is important to keep in mind that an adolescent’s attachment style interacts with other experiences to shape mental health and behavior.

III. THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTIMACY IN ADOLESCENCE

A. Changes in the Nature of Friendship: With development, adolescents become more likely to consider self-disclosure, common interests, shared attitudes and values, and loyalty (aka “intimacy”) as defining features of friendship. In childhood, friendship is defined by companionship; it is not until adolescence that intimacy is a part of the definition.

B. Jealousy: Intimate self-disclosure has many advantages but can lead to concerns about loyalty and anxieties over rejection during middle adolescence. Interestingly, conflicts between adolescents change, with older adolescents’ conflicts focusing on private matters and younger adolescents’ conflicts focusing on public disrespect. Girls, in particular, show a pronounced increase in jealousy over their friends’ friends during early adolescence. In some senses, intimate friendship is a mixed blessing for young adolescent girls: They get the benefits of having confidantes with whom they can easily talk about their problems, but their friendships are more fragile and more easily disrupted by feelings of betrayal. As a consequence, girls’ friendships on average do not last as long as boys’ do.

C. Conflict: Although conflicts between adolescents and their close friends are less frequent than they are between adolescents and less intimate peers, arguments with close friends are more emotional, with lots of anger and hurt feelings. Conflicts with friends both influence and are influenced by adolescent depression.

D. Changes in the Display of Intimacy: In addition to placing greater emphasis on intimacy and loyalty in defining friendship than children do, teenagers are more likely to display intimacy in their relationships.

E. Knowing Who Their Friends Are: As individuals move into and through adolescence, they gain knowledge about more intimate aspects of their friends’ lives. Over the course of adolescence, adolescents’ reports of friendship quality increase steadily. These improvements in friendship quality lead to gains in social competence and increases in positive affect, which in turn lead to further improvement in the quality of adolescents’ friendships.

F. Caring and Concern: Additionally, numerous studies have revealed that adolescents become increasingly sensitive to the feelings and needs of their friends, provide more comfort to their friends when their friends are having problems, and are less controlling and more tolerant of their friends’ individuality. Adolescents show greater levels of empathy and social understanding in situations in which they are helping or comforting others.

G. Conflict Resolution: The ways in which close friends resolve conflicts also change over the course of adolescence. According to a comprehensive review, as individuals move from childhood into adolescence, and from adolescence into young adulthood, they become more likely to end their disagreements by negotiation or disengagement and less likely to end them with one person coercing or overpowering the other to get their way.

H. Does Using Social Media Hurt the Development of Intimacy? Research clearly shows that digital communication among friends enhances, rather than detracts, the quality of adolescents’ friendships. A second conclusion is that digital communication serves an important purpose in helping teenagers validate the importance of their friendships. Third, digital communication has provided new ways for adolescents to enjoy their friends’ companionship. Finally, many of the negative interactions that occur between teenagers online are the same as those that occur in person.

I. Sex Differences in Intimacy: How Females Are More Intimate: Adolescent girls express more interest in their close friendships, talk more frequently about their intimate conversations with friends, express greater concern about their friends’ faithfulness and greater anxiety over rejection, and place greater emphasis on emotional closeness in their evaluation of romantic partners. Additionally, girls tend to be more sensitive and empathic than boys, especially when comforting friends who are distressed. Although girls’ level of intimacy is generally viewed as an advantage, there can also be some disadvantages. Girls’ mental health is more positively affected than boys’ when things are going well with their friends, but girls suffer more when things are going poorly. For example, girls are more likely than boys to coruminate (spend excessive time discussing each other’s problems). Corumination brings friends closer, but it also contributes to girls’ depression and anxiety. Among boys, corumination also improves friendships but does not increase depression or anxiety as much or as consistently as it does among girls. Although girls are better than boys at negotiating conflict, girls’ conflicts are longer, typically about some form of betrayal in the relationship, and resolved only when one of the friends apologizes.

J. And How They Aren’t: Girls tend to report more self-disclosure in their friendships than boys. Boys and girls, however, have equivalent degrees of intimate knowledge about their best friends. This may suggest that intimacy is not absent from boys’ relationships but rather that intimacy is a more conscious concern for girls than for boys. In general, boys’ friendships are more oriented toward shared activities than toward the explicit satisfaction of emotional needs.

K. The Origins of Sex Differences: Some have suggested that the sex differences in intimacy are a result of different patterns of socialization, with females being more strongly encouraged to develop and express intimacy. Also, social pressures on males and females during adolescence are quite different and may lead to differences in expressions of intimacy.

L. Changes in the Targets of Intimacy: In general, new types of relationships are added to the adolescent’s social world without replacing previous ones.

M. Parents and Peers as Targets of Intimacy: Whereas in childhood, the primary “targets” of intimacy are parents and, to a lesser extent, siblings, beginning in preadolescence, the network of intimates widens to include peers, family members, and mentors. One of the most consistent findings to emerge from studies of adolescents’ peer and family relationships is that the qualities of these relationships are closely linked. In other words, we can see features of adolescents’ relationships with their parents and their parents’ marital relationship—how close they are, how emotionally reactive they are, how they deal with conflict, and so forth—in their relationships with their friends and romantic partners. In addition, there are important differences between adolescents’ relationships with mothers versus fathers. In general, even though they argue more, adolescents are closer to and interact with their mother more than their father. This is especially true for girls.

N. The Different Roles of Parents and Peers: Adolescents also have very different sorts of intimate relationships with parents and peers, and these differences point to different ways in which mothers, fathers, and friends may contribute to their social development. Rather than viewing one type of relationship as more or less intimate than the other, it is more accurate to say that intimacy with parents and with peers are both important. Intimacy with parents provides opportunities to learn from those older and wiser; intimacy with friends provides opportunities to share experiences with individuals who have a similar perspective and degree of expertise. A lack of support from parents or from friends in school is associated with low self-worth and poorer social adjustment. Having support from parents, siblings, or nonschool friends does not fully compensate for a lack of support from classmates, though, and having support from siblings, classmates, or others does not fully compensate for a lack of support from parents.

O. Other Individuals as Targets of Intimacy: Intimacy in sibling relationships is a complicated matter and often includes a mix of affection and rivalry. Generally, adolescents say they are less intimate with siblings than with their parents or friends. Comparatively little is known about intimacy with members of adolescents’ extended family or with nonfamilial adults such as teachers or coaches. Although a decline in intimacy with grandparents is often observed during adolescence, this is not as common among adolescents who are living with a single, divorced mother.

P. Friendships With the Other Sex: Not until late adolescence do close friendships with other-sex peers begin to be important. Studies of preadolescents and young teenagers point to very strong sex segregation in adolescents’ friendships, with boys rarely reporting friendships with girls and girls rarely reporting friendships with boys, at least until middle adolescence.

Q. Origins of the Sex Cleavage: Preadolescent and early adolescent boys and girls have different interests, engage in different sorts of peer activities, and perceive themselves to be different from each other. Intimacy between adolescent boys and girls is relatively slow to develop and generally is tinged with an air of sexuality. Intimate friendships between adolescents of the same sex are not displaced by the emergence of intimacy between adolescent males and females. When females do include other-sex peers on their list of important people, the boys they mention are often older and from another school. When boys list girls as important friends, they generally are of the same age or younger. Young adolescents of both sexes spend a lot of time thinking about the other sex but relatively little time with them.

R. Some Functions of Other-Sex Friendships: In early and middle adolescence, age differences in other-sex friendships are similar to those seen between dating partners, with boys generally older than their female friends, rather than the reverse. Furthermore, adolescents who have more other-sex friends than their peers early in adolescence tend to enter into romantic relationships at an earlier age (and have longer romantic relationships). Adolescents with close other-sex friends tend to be either socially competent and highly popular with same-sex peers or adolescents who are socially incompetent and highly unpopular with same-sex peers. Some researchers have found that, among less sexually advanced girls, having platonic friendships with boys is associated with a more positive body image—perhaps because these friendships permit girls to feel that boys like them for themselves, without the added cost of feeling pressured to have sex. Girls with male friends are more likely to be involved in antisocial behavior, especially if their male friends are antisocial.

IV. DATING AND ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS

A. Dating plays a very different role in adolescents’ lives today than it did in previous times. In earlier times, dating during adolescence was viewed as a part of the process of courtship and mate selection. Because individuals are getting married later in life (today, the average age is about 27 for women and 30 for men), high school dating has taken on an entirely new meaning. Although studies indicate that modern-day romantic relationships among teenagers are very common (one-fourth of 12-year-olds, one-half of 15-year-olds, and more than two thirds of 18-year-olds report having had a romantic relationship in the past 18 months), high school dating for today’s teenagers has very little to do with courtship or marriage. As is the case with platonic cross-sex friendships, girls tend to become romantically involved with boys who are slightly older, whereas boys tend to become involved with girls who are the same age or younger.

B. Dating and the Development of Intimacy: Contemporary researchers draw on Sullivan’s theory of interpersonal development, attachment theory, and ecological perspectives on development to explain adolescent romance. Sullivan’s theory of interpersonal development suggests that adolescents begin establishing intimate relationships through same-sex friendships, then transition into expressing intimacy in romantic relationships. Attachment theory suggests that individuals differ in the quality of their romantic relationships and that these differences are paralleled by differences in the relationships individuals have with parents and peers. The ecological perspective suggests that romantic relationships need to be viewed in the social context in which they occur.

C. The Nature and Significance of Romance: For adolescent girls more than boys, early sexual relationships are far more likely to involve love, emotional involvement, and intimacy. This is very important because for girls romantic relationships provide a context for the further expression of intimacy, whereas for boys, they provide a context for the further development of intimacy. It appears that the sexes are more similar than different in how their romantic relationships develop.

D. The Role of Context: The age at which dating begins is influenced by the norms and expectations in the adolescent’s community. Although early maturers begin dating somewhat earlier than late maturers, age norms within the adolescent’s school and peer group are more important in determining the age at which dating begins than is the adolescent’s level of physical development. Family instability is associated with dating, especially among boys, with adolescents from more unstable families more likely to date and more likely to have multiple romantic partners.

E. Patterns of Dating: “Dating” can mean a variety of different things, from group activities that bring males and females together (without much actual contact between the sexes), to group dates in which a group of boys and girls go out jointly (and spend part of the time in couples and part of the time in the larger group), to casual dating in couples, to serious involvement with a boyfriend or girlfriend. Generally, casual socializing with other-sex peers and experiences in a mixed-sex social network occur before the development of romantic relationships.

F. The Development of Dating Relationships: It is not until late adolescence that dating relationships begin to be characterized by a level of emotional depth and maturity that can be described as intimate, and it is not until late adolescence that individuals develop genuinely deep attachments to individuals other than their parents. The ways in which adolescents interact with romantic partners also changes with development, with increasing willingness to acknowledge, analyze, and work through disagreements.

G. Reasons for Dating: Prior to middle or late adolescence, dating may be less important for the development of intimacy than it is for other purposes, including establishing emotional and behavioral autonomy from parents, furthering the development of gender identity, learning about oneself as a romantic partner, and establishing and maintaining status and popularity in the peer group.

H. Phases of Romance: Research has indicated that the evolution of romance for adolescents proceeds through three distinct stages: (1) the main purpose of romantic activity in the first stage (roughly between 11 and 13) involves establishing, improving, or maintaining peer group (social) status; (2) during the second phase (from about 14 to 16), adolescents slowly move toward more meaningful dyadic relationships (dating is very casual and often occurs in a group context); (3) the last stage (beginning around 17 or 18) involves adolescents giving thought to the long-term survival and growth of their romantic attachments. This progression, however, may be less applicable to sexual minority youth (adolescents who are not exclusively heterosexual). Stigmas and stereotypes make the development of intimate relationships of all kinds far more complicated for LGBTQ youth than for their straight peers. In an effort to avoid public harassment resulting from public displays of intimacy with a same-sex partner, many LGBTQ youth pursue sexual activity that is outside the context of a dating relationship. Also, LGBTQ youth may find it difficult to develop intimate friendships in general because of fear of homophobic reactions from same-sex peers.

I. Sex Differences in Partner Preferences: There are both age and sex differences in what adolescents look for in romantic partners. During middle adolescence, boys are more likely than girls to emphasize the importance of physical attractiveness and girls are more likely to emphasize the importance of interpersonal qualities, such as support or intimacy (controlled experiments, however, suggest that girls may be more influenced by physical attractiveness than they think they are). By late adolescence, however, both sexes emphasize interpersonal qualities, and the ingredients of a satisfying relationship are very similar for males and females (e.g., passion, communication, commitment, emotional support, and togetherness).

J. The Impact of Dating on Adolescent Development: Participating in mixed-sex activity in group situations has a positive impact on the psychological well-being of adolescents. Nevertheless, the impact of more serious dating is complicated and may be related to the adolescent’s age. In general, adolescents whose timing of dating onset is atypical (either too early or too late) may be at risk of psychological maladjustment.

K. Early Starters: Entering into a serious romantic relationship before it is normative is associated with a wide range of negative correlates. Specifically, girls who begin serious dating early are less socially mature, less imaginative, less oriented toward achievement, less happy with who they are and how they look, more depressed, more likely to engage in disordered eating, less likely to do well in school, and more likely to be involved in delinquency, substance use, and risky behavior. Nonetheless, because we cannot randomly assign some teenagers to date and others to remain single, we cannot be sure that early dating actually causes problems. In sum, there is evidence that girls who get involved in serious romances at a young age are different from their peers even before they begin dating. It has been suggested that the link between early dating and poor mental health may have something to do with pressures on girls to engage in sexual activity before they are willing or psychologically ready.

L. To Date or Not to Date? Adolescents who do not date at all show signs of retarded social development and feelings of insecurity. On the other hand, adolescents who date and go to parties regularly are more popular, have a stronger self-image, and report greater acceptance by their friends. In contrast to the impact of early serious dating or not dating at all, romantic socializing that is developmentally appropriate is associated with psychosocial maturity, social competence, and school bonding, perhaps because school is a setting in which romantic partners have plenty of opportunities to see each other. It is also important to keep in mind that characteristics of the romantic partner play a role in shaping the impact of dating on psychological development. Regardless of the impact that dating does or does not have on adolescents’ psychosocial development, studies show that romance has a powerful impact on their emotional state. Research indicates that adolescents’ real and fantasized relationships trigger more of their strong emotional feelings during the course of a day than do family, school, or friends. Although most of the feelings are generally positive, approximately 40% are negative (anxiety, anger, jealousy, and depression). Indeed, the breakup of a romantic relationship is the single most common trigger of the first episode of major depression. Adolescents most vulnerable to the potential negative consequences of breaking up are those who are high in rejection sensitivity, those who have an insecure working model, those who have experienced a series of breakups, those who have other sorts of problems, and those who identify themselves as the one who was broken up with.

M. Violence in Dating Relationships: Many romantic relationships in adolescence are characterized by hostility, aggression, and abuse. Perhaps the most distressing fact is that a high proportion of adolescents believe that physical violence in a relationship is acceptable: In a sample of over 5,000 American sixth graders, more than 50 percent said that it was OK for a girl to hit her boyfriend (if he made her jealous or mad) and about 25% said it was OK for a boy to hit his girlfriend. It appears that between 40% and 50% of American adolescents have been a victim of violence in their romantic relationships. About 25% of dating teenagers report having been the victim of “cyber dating abuse”—abuse via technology and social media—during the past year. Dating abuse increases between early adolescence and mid-adolescence and then becomes somewhat less common. Violence is more common in rural areas than suburban or urban communities, and among ethnic minority adolescents, adolescents from single-parent households, adolescents from lower socioeconomic homes, and LGBTQ youth. Although exposure to violence in school is associated with dating violence, exposure to violence at home is a much stronger predictor of dating aggression, suggesting that there is something distinctive about the impact of being exposed to domestic violence, rather than violence in general. A number of different explanations for the intergenerational transmission of violence have been hypothesized, including the development of beliefs about the appropriateness of violence in close relationships and the adverse impact of exposure to violence on adolescents’ mental health, which then leads to mental health problems and difficulties in regulating anger. Not surprisingly, experiencing violence is associated with suicidal thoughts, depression, illegal drug use, premature pregnancy, and school dropout, with many of the problems persisting into young adulthood. We know that adolescents behave in a variety of ways within dating relationships that are shaped by “scripts” for how males and females are expected to behave—scripts that are learned at home and from the mass media. An important message in this section is that the qualities of adolescents’ relationships with others (e.g., parents, siblings, friends, romantic partners) are correlated. Individuals’ early experiences in the family interact with their cumulative experiences with peers during childhood and preadolescence. These cumulative effects help shape the nature and quality of romantic relationships in adolescence.

V. INTIMACY AND PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

A. Intimate relationships with family members, peers, and romantic partners play an important role in young people’s overall psychological development. Nevertheless, it is important to keep in mind that the impact of intimate friendships depends largely on who that friend is and what takes place in the relationship. Being popular is less important than genuinely having friends, and having friends is less important than having good friendships. Although friendships serve many positive functions, such as opportunities for self-disclosure, intimacy, and companionship, they also provide opportunities for insecurity, conflict, jealousy, and mistrust. Nevertheless, studies consistently show that individuals with satisfying close friendships fare better than those without them, not only in adolescence but also in adulthood.