YOUNG-ADULTS RELATIONSHIPS WITH THEIR CLOSEST GRANDPARENTS - EXAMINING EMOTIONAL CLOSENESS

One hundred seventy-one undergraduates completed a questionnaire evalu ating their relationships with the living grandparents to whom they fe lt emotionally closest (N = 125), or if they felt close to none of the ir grandparents, the grandparents with whom they had the most contact (N = 46). In contrast to past research which has largely ignored relat ionship quality in studying grandchild-grandparent relationships, the present results showed that relationships experienced as close differ in a number of important ways from those experienced as distant. Those who felt close had more frequent and diverse contact with the grandpa rents. They also reported that this contact was of greater importance both to themselves and their grandparents, and that the grandparents h ad greater influence over their lives. These results suggest that futu re studies should take variation in emotional closeness into considera tion when examining ties between young adults and their grandparents ( even their closest grandparents).