The present study was designed to test the hypothesis that young adult romantic relationship experiences would moderate the effects of early caregiving experiences to predict anxious-depressed symptoms across a nine-year period in young adulthood. Participants were 93 individuals for whom prospectively measured early caregiving (ages 12-42 months), young adult romantic relationship quality (age 23), and anxious-depressed symptom (ages 23, 26, and 32) data were available. We derived and tested the following hypotheses related to cross-sectional/intercept effects (i.e., the interaction between early caregiving and age 23 romantic experiences to predict age 23 anxious-depressed symptoms) and slope effects (i.e., changes in symptoms over time).
