Individuality and intimacy in adolescence: the case of detached and connected

The purpose of this study was to investigate in depth Detached and Connected adoles-cents in order to examine their profiles with regard to internalizing and externalizing be-havioral problems. Participants were 705 adolescents (39% males), aged from 14 to 19 years. They were ad-ministered (a) the Inclusion of Other in the Self to assess their perception of intimacy with parents; (b) the Emotional Autonomy Scale to evaluate emotional autonomy from parents; and (c) an adapted version of the Youth Self-Report to assess internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems. On the basis of intimacy and autonomy scores, 129 participants were classified as De-tached adolescents and 122 as Connected adolescents. Successively, a cluster analysis was performed on these adolescents with regard to behavioral problems. Results revealed that adolescents could be assigned to one of six different profiles: Internalizing Detached adolescents (14%), showing high levels of internalizing problematic behavior; Externalizing Detached adolescents (9%), showing high levels of externalizing behavioral problem; De-tached adolescents exhibiting co-occurrence (14%), showing high levels of both internaliz-ing and externalizing problematic behavior; Well-adjusted Detached adolescents (14%), showing low levels of both internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems; Well-adjusted Connected adolescents (37%), showing low levels of both internalizing and ex-ternalizing behavioral problems; Maladjusted Connected adolescents (12%), showing high levels of both internalizing and externalizing problematic behavior.