AN EXPLORATORY-STUDY OF YOUNG PERSONS ATTACHMENT STYLES AND PERCEIVEDREASONS FOR PARENTAL DIVORCE

The relation between young people's perceptions of the reasons for the ir parents' divorces and their own feelings of security in romantic re lationships was explored iri this study. Eighty-one young persons from divorced homes completed the Reasons fa, Parental Divorce Questionnai re (RPDQ) developed specifically for this study curd self-report instr uments regarding attachment style, as measured by the Relationship Que stionnaire (RQ), (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991) and the Relationships Scale Questionnaire (RSQ) (Griffin & Bartholomew, 1994). The majority (73%) of young people in this study described insecure attachment styl es. As expected, perception; of why why parents divorced were signific antly related to young persons' attachment outcomes. Reasons for divor ce involving expressions of overt angel; the involvement of the childr en, and extramarital affairs were most important in differentiating se cure and insecure young persons. Thus, these results indicate that the re may be meaningful connections between young people's understandings of their patients' divorces and their own romantic relational perspec tives.