Relations with parents and friends during adolescence and early adulthood

Relative power, conflict, and intimacy in adolescents' and young adults' relations with mothers, fathers, and best friends were examined. Two hundred eighty-five students from German high-track (i.e., university bound schools 6th, 9th, 12th grade), undergraduate and graduate students completed the respective scales of the Network of Relationships Inventory (Furman & Buhrmester, 1985). Relations with friends were more symmetrical and had a better socio-emotional quality than relations with parents. Still, increases in relative power in relations with parents were accompanied by low absolute levels of conflict. A symmetrical distribution of power in the family was not reached before the end of the third decade of life. To explore the influence of the entry into worklife on close relations, an additional subsample of 55 working young adults was compared with the participating university students. Despite slight differences in age-related patterns of intimacy, similarities prevailed. Overall, findings mostly converge with observations in U.S. samples of high school and college students and point to a more general process of relationship development as suggested by individuation theory.