Using 212 adolescents from a central-European country (mean age = 14.02, SD = 2.05, ranged from 11 to 18 years; females = 54%) and a multi-informant method to measure adolescents' behavioral and emotional adjustments, the present study explored three aspects regarding the attachment hierarchy. (1) The three types of behavioral systems of Rosenthal and Kobak's important people interview (IPI) were initially validated using an exploratory factor analysis with a US sample. Using a confirmatory factor analysis with a Czech sample, we replicated these three behavioral systems: attachment bond, support seeking, and affiliation. (2) We found that adolescents who developed attachment bond to multiple primary attachment figures were likely to score lower on both teacher-rated and parent-rated internalizing problems compared to those who had a single primary attachment figure. These multiple primary attachment figures tended to be family members (not peers). (3) Early adolescents who placed parents low in their attachment hierarchy scored higher on self-reported negative affect and lower on self-reported positive affect compared to early adolescents who placed parents high. The present study highlights multiple (vs. single) primary attachment figures as a protective factor and the premature reorganization of attachment hierarchy as a risk factor for adolescents' emotional and affective adjustments.

b Faculty of Social Studies Masaryk University Brno Czech Republic

c Centre for Neuroscience Central European Institute of Technology Masaryk University Brno Czech Republic

Graduate School of Education Hiroshima University Higashi Hiroshima Japan

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Are one's attachment avoidance toward a particular person and his/her placement of this particular person in the attachment hierarchy inversely overlapping? Four bifactor-analysis studies