Quality of non-resident grandparent-grandchild relationship during adolescence and influence on identity status

The purpose of this cross-sectional study was to explore effects of the quality of the relationship between non-resident grandparents (GPs) and adolescent grandchildren (GC) on the GC\u27s identity status in emerging adulthood. There is a dearth of research concerning non-resident GPs although most GPs do not reside with GC. Based on transgenerational theories and a review of the literature, it was hypothesized that parental authoritativeness would influence the quality of the GP-GC relationship, the GP-GC relationship would affect GC\u27s identity achievement, and that the GP-GC relationship would mediate the relationship between parental authoritativeness and GC\u27s identity achievement. Online surveys gathered data concerning identity status, parental authoritativeness, and quality of the GP-GC relationship among other information. A final sample of 89 emerging adults was used to run three multiple regressions and a multinomial logistic regression to test the first two hypotheses. The third hypothesis was not tested due to lack of significance from the second analysis. There was no significance found for any of the hypothesized variables, though significance was found for a number of other variables, including frequency of contact and the quality of the GPGC relationship. Further discussion and is included within the paper