Attachment, social information processing, and friendship quality of early adolescent girls and boys

Sixth graders (N = 223; 109 girls) completed questionnaires assessing their attachment security with their mothers and fathers, their social information processing (SIP) when faced with ambiguously caused hypothetical negative events involving a close friend, and the quality of the relationship with that friend. Aspects of more maladaptive SIP were significantly related to lower levels of security. The overall pattern of results did not provide strong evidence for mediation, although boys' anger did tend to mediate the relation between attachment to the mother and friendship quality. The results are consistent with attachment theory and suggest that the mechanisms connecting attachment and friendship are specific with regard to the relationships boys and girls have with their fathers and mothers.