The role of primary emotions in separation-individuation during emerging adulthood

Introduction: Separation-individuation (S-I) in relation to parents is a core developmental process that unfolds during infancy/toddlerhood (primary S-I) and adolescence/ emerging adulthood (second S-I) and relates to psychological functioning across several domains. While the outcomes of this process are most commonly explained by the quality of parent-child relationships, the role of child temperament/personality is rarely considered. Methods: We examined the role of emerging adults' primary emotions on five aspects of S-I in relation to mother and father, as captured by the Individuation Test for Emerging Adults-Short. The sample consisted of 446 emerging adults (58.7% females, 41.3% males), predominantly students. Results: Hierarchical linear regressions suggested a significant contribution of the six primary emotions (SEEKING, FEAR, ANGER, SADNESS, CARE, and PLAY) across the aspects of S-I (seeking parental support, connectedness, perceived parental intrusiveness, self-reliance, and fear of disappointing the parent), over and beyond the relevant demographic variables (age, gender, living arrangement). Differential associations showed consistent links of SEEKING with self-reliance, of CARE and low SADNESS with both support seeking and connectedness, of SADNESS with perceived parental intrusiveness, and of FEAR with fear of disappointing parents. A few inconsistent relations were likely due to somewhat different roles of mothers and fathers in the caregiving context. Discussion: Overall, our results provide new evidence supporting the idea that individual differences in primary emotional systems may play a distinct and meaningful role in affecting aspects of the S-I process in emerging adulthood.