The Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (ippa): a Study on the Validity of Styles of Adolescent Attachment to Parents and Peers in an Italian Sample

The aims of the present study were to provide a contribution to the validation of the three versions of the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA) (Armsden & Greenberg, 1989) relative to mother, father, and peers, and to verify the validity of the attachment style classifications suggested by Armsden and Greenberg (1987) and Vivona (2000). The IPPA measures adolescent parent and peer attachment styles by assessing the following three dimensions: Trust, Communication, and Alienation. The sample was composed of 1183 adolescents (606 males and 577 females) living in central Italy. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the three-factor structure in both parent and peer IPPA versions. The internal consistency coefficients (ρ) of the three IPPA subscales were satisfactory for each version. Further, the present study provided support for both parent and peer attachment style classifications devised by Armsden and Greenberg (1987) and Vivona (2000), also within the Italian context.