Drinking Behavior, Drinking Attitudes, and Attachment Relationship of Adolescents

In this article the connection between the drinking behavior and drinking attitudes of adolescents in relation to their attachment relationship with their parents is examined. The Family Episode Rating Task (FERT) was used, which was developed to measure the attachment relationship; it measures four patterns of parent-adolescent attachment. An Alcohol Questionnaire was used to measure the quantity and frequency of alcohol use, the amount of problem drinking, and the drinking attitudes of adolescents. It was hypothesized that anxiously attached adolescents have a greater risk of developing damaging drinking habits. One hundred sixty-one adolescents participated, all of them students in Grades 7, 9, and 11 of a high school. By means of an analysis of variance it was demonstrated that the Attitude scale's "drinking to facilitate social contact" was significantly related to the quality of the attachment relationship with the parents: this reason for drinking was mentioned most frequently among adolescents who were anxiously attached.