Although considerable theory and research supports the derivation of the intercept hypotheses (described above), less theory and empirical work has addressed how anxious-depressed symptom levels may change across time as a function of early caregiving and young adult romantic quality. We expected that the symptoms of individuals who experienced lower quality early caregiving and had lower quality young adult romantic relationships would increase over time, given the reciprocal influence between negative close relationship experiences and internalizing symptoms (Coyne, 1976; Hammen, 1991) (Hypothesis 5). In contrast, we expected that individuals who had higher quality early caregiving and higher quality young adult romantic relationships would display a relatively flat trajectory of symptoms over time (Hypothesis 6). Because positive adult romantic relationship experiences can compensate for negative early caregiving (Rönkä et al., 2002), we also anticipated that the moderate level of anxious-depressed symptoms for individuals who have this particular configuration would decrease over time (Hypothesis 7).
