How personality factors, coping with identity-stress, and parental rearing styles contribute to the expression of somatic complaints in emerging adults in seven countries

Objective

Somatic complaints are frequently named by emerging adults in many countries, but psychological factors contributing to the high level of these often medically unexplained symptoms have received little attention. This study examines the influence of shared risk factors on somatic complaints in a culturally diverse sample.

Methods and measures

In a cross-cultural survey study of 2,113 emerging adults (mean age = 22.0 yrs.; SD = 2.04) from seven countries (France, Germany, Turkey, Greece, Peru, Pakistan, and Poland) personality variables, parental rearing styles, coping abilities as well as identity-related stress were assessed. In a second step we successively entered these variables in hierarchical linear mixed models, controlling for country and gender effects and their respective interaction, in order to determine their impact on the level of somatic complaints across countries.

Results

All these dimensions varied extensively between all countries, with females reporting higher levels of somatic complaints than men in several countries. Despite this variation, our findings demonstrate a general and stable influence of neuroticism, openness, parental rearing styles, coping abilities and identity-related stress on somatic complaints across countries.

Conclusion

Findings support the use of a general intervention model that includes appropriate coping strategies for emotion regulation, but also encourages support seeking for age-specific problems in dealing with identity stress during the transition to adulthood. In addition, this intervention model should be adjusted for a specific culture and gender.

Partnerbeziehungen bei jungen Erwachsenen: Flucht vor der Intimität?

Hintergrund

Junge Erwachsene kommen häufig mit Partnerproblemen in die Behandlung; die Abgrenzung zwischen Bindungsstörungen bzw. narzisstischen Persönlichkeitsstörungen und normalen Entwicklungsphänomenen ist oftmals schwer.

Ziel der Arbeit

Es wird ein Überblick über Forschungsbefunde zu Partnerbeziehungen der 20- bis 30-Jährigen, den „emerging adults“, gegeben. Diese befinden sich in einer spezifischen, neu entdeckten Entwicklungsphase mit viel Exploration und wenig „commitment“.

Ergebnisse

Internationale Forschungsarbeiten, aber auch Arbeiten im deutschsprachigen Raum, belegen einheitlich eine Form von „Nichtbeziehungen“, in denen Sexualität gelebt, aber definitiv keine Partnerbeziehung gewünscht wird. Die Beziehungsqualitäten und die Form der Nichtbeziehungen sind bei allen Geschlechtern gleich. Längsschnittstudien belegen, dass eine Entwicklung zur Paarbindung, die im Jugendalter eingesetzt hatte, unterbrochen wird und erst Jahre später wieder länger dauernde, bezogene Paarbeziehungen bei den meisten jungen Menschen nachweisbar sind.

Diskussion

Es wird diskutiert, inwieweit zu enge, intrusive und zu unterstützende Elternbeziehungen zur „Flucht vor der Intimität“ beitragen, und welchen Einfluss neue Medien und Dating-Portale, aber auch der zunehmende Optimierungswahn und narzisstische gesamtgesellschaftliche Entwicklungen haben. Für diese Einflussfaktoren gibt es auch empirische Belege.

Why are undergraduate emerging adults anxious and avoidant in their romantic relationships? The role of family relationships

The exploration of and search for romantic relationships is one of the developmental tasks that characterise emerging adulthood, a new developmental phase halfway between adolescence and full adulthood. This study aims to explore, in a Mediterranean country, the existing relationships between the subjective perception of some parental behaviour and the anxiety and avoidance dimensions of attachment during emerging adulthood. To do so, 1,502 university students (903 women and 599 men) aged between 18 and 29 (M = 20.32 and SD = 2.13) completed a self-report questionnaire. The results revealed that perceived family support and perceived parental warmth were negatively associated with the avoidance and anxiety dimensions. In contrast, perceived parental control (both behavioural and psychological) was found to be positively associated with both attachment dimensions. Perceived behavioural control was also found to play a moderator role between perceived parental warmth and romantic attachment anxiety. Only in cases in which emerging adults of our sample perceived low levels of behavioural control was warmth found to be negatively associated with anxiety. The main conclusion of this work is the negative impact that parental control seems to have on romantic attachment during emerging adulthood. The results are discussed with a focus on the continuing importance of the family context in relation to the completion of developmental tasks, even during emerging adulthood.

Patterns of Romantic Pathways among 23 Year Olds and their Adolescent Antecedents

Observation of the romantic lives of the majority of young people shows that they might move between transitory and inconsistent states, being in and out of a relationship. The present study aims to better understand the meaning of these fluctuations. For this purpose, and employing a multi-method design, 144 Israeli adolescents (59.7% females) were followed from age 16 to 23. At age 23 in-depth interviews were conducted with the participants, focusing on their romantic histories. Analyses of interviews at age 23 yielded four distinctive romantic pathways differing in stability and the ability to progress toward intimacy: Sporadic and Casual Encounters, Sporadic Encounters in Response to a Stressful Romantic Experience, Steady Non-Intimate Involvements, and Progression toward Steady Intimate Involvements. The findings showed that more than half of participants belonged to the Progression toward Steady Intimate Involvements pathway, suggesting that romantic fluctuations served as means to progress toward intimate involvements. Progression toward steady intimate involvement was explained by greater secure attachment, greater capacity to face tension and to express one's views, and greater parental support measured seven years earlier. In contrast, lower earlier intra- and interpersonal assets during adolescence were more likely to associate with a variety of romantic experiences during emerging adulthood that are characterized by romantic instabilities and difficulty to progress toward intimacy. The findings are discussed within the framework of the Developmental Systems Theory.