Individuals typically focus on the development of intimate relationships during late adolescence and early adulthood (Aylmer, 1989; Erikson, 1963, 1968). Successful resolution of the issue of intimacy enables the young adult to maintain committed, enduring intimate relationships (Orlofsky, 1993). The transition to college is the first time away from home for many adolescents (Balk, 1995). With this major life change, adolescents face the challenges of establishing a sense of identity and renegotiating relationships with caregivers (Erikson, 1968). More recently, however, attention has been given to the role of attachment relationship with family as adaptive in adolescence (Gilligan, 1982; Grotevant and Cooper, 1985; Josselson, 1988) and influential in identity development.

Most research in the area of adolescent attachment relationship has examined the influence of secure parent-adolescent attachment on developmental outcomes in adolescents (Armsden and Greenberg, 1987). The parent-adolescent relationship has been found to be an influential factor in adolescents' support-seeking and active problem-solving coping styles (Greenberger and McLaughlin, 1998) in addition to early adolescents' self-esteem (Harvey and Byrd, 1998). Academic and emotional adjustment in college is also associated with secure parent-adolescent attachment relationship (Lapsley et al., 1990; Rice et al., 1995).

The investigation of the structure and meaning of interpersonal behavior in different cultures has been an important component of cross-cultural research in psychology for many years. The reason for the centrality of this topic is fairly obvious: interpersonal behavior forms the core of human daily activity, and, thus, it seems inevitable that culture will influence it greatly. In fact, we can safely assume that culture and interpersonal behaviur constitute each other in that it is hard to think of one without referring to the other (Adamopoulos, 2002). Over the past thirty years, Triandis and his colleagues have investigated, among other aspects of subjective culture, the manner in which people perceive and ascribe meaning to interpersonal behavior (Triandis, 1972, 1994).

The themes of dominance and intimacy are probably the most central in defining the nature of an interpersonal relationship. For this reason, we need to consider the other concomitant relational interpretations beyond dominance ones. In the structure of people's interpersonal relations, one would presumably find a very coherent pattern. Heider (1958) argued that people tend to achieve patterns of interpersonal relations that can be described as balanced triads. The difference in social interaction may be attributed to differences between the societies in belief systems, shared values, social cognitive processes, and affective meaning (Leung et al., 1997).

Despite such awareness that the issue of social interactional pattern may not be studied without realizing the cultural context for an individual, relatively lesser studies were conducted in the societies which are collective in nature. Dadkhah, Harizuka, and Mandal (1999) presented 3 factorial inventory with a data-base for cultures of societies which were little explored in terms of the understanding of social interactional patterns.

The aims of the present study were (a) to find out the pattern of intimate relationships during late adolescence (college and university period), attachment relationship with family, and dominance and intimacy relationship in Persian culture society, an interpersonal relationship inventory was developed and standardized culture and (b) to examine the dominant domains of interpersonal relationship in this society with reference to the embedded factor structure of such an inventory.

The development of an interpersonal relationship inventory would help us to understand the manner in which people perceive and ascribe meaning to interpersonal behavior in order to form a data base in this kind of society.

Subjects - For the study totally 246 subjects (pilot-study=102, main-study=144) were considered. They were university students and had no history of other neurological disorders. Subjects were also matched closely to socio-economic status. This sample was stratified on the basis of subject characteristics.

Procedure - In the beginning, a 47 item inventory with a 5-point Likert type rating scale, ranged from 1 (extremely uncharacteristic) to 5 (extremely characteristic), was developed on the different domains of social behavior. These items included both approach and avoidance behaviors in different situations for social cognitive and affective events.

After pilot work, it was administrated to 102 subjects (Mean age 29 yr). They answered on a range from 1 to 5. The resulting correlation matrix was evaluated against the three criteria of suitability for factor analysis. These three factors, selected with a criterion of an eigenvalue of 2.00, accounted for 39.8% of the variance.

For examining the suitability for inclusion, the items were submitted to the three subject experts who were made aware of the purpose, goal, and concept behind the inventory. The commonly selected items, 34 altogether, were thus retained. These items were then given to language experts for making editorial corrections. Certain items were retranslated in the process to retain the psycho-linguistic properties. The format of the inventory changed according to the response format, lie scores were chosen and the relevant questions were repeated, and finally the reverse scores were determined. This version of the inventory was then administered to a relatively heterogeneous sample of 144 (Mean age 24.6 yr., SD 6.67 yr.) university students.

Subjects' responses, taken on a 5-point rating scale, were then scored (higher the score, greater was the interpersonal relationship) and tabulated to create a 34 x 34 inter-correlation matrix which was then treated with principal component factor analysis and rotated with Varimax method. The minimum loading of .52 was accepted for the items to be retained in the factorial structure. The analysis yielded four factors in terms of social interactional domains. Altogether 24 items were retained and 10 items were found to be redundant. Loadings of items on the four factors were shown in Table 1.

Factor I (eigenvalue 5.8, % variance 12.4) constituted of those items (I like talking with my family members, I want to spend my time with my family members, I like to discuss many things with my family members, I am happy to enjoy or work with my family members, I usually talk with my family members, I talk with my parents) refer to family interaction and thus labeled 'family relationship'.

Factor II (eigenvalue 5.13, % variance 10.9) was labeled as 'friend relationship' as these items (I like talking with my friends, I talk with my friends, I like to share my thinking with my friends, I am happy to enjoy or work with my friends, I remember the things happened to my friends, I like to spend my time with my friends). The cluster of items (I talk and remember my earlier experience with others, I like to think about many things with others, I want to talk with unfamiliar people, I would like to ask others to do my affairs, I like to enjoy or work even with others, I would like to spend my time with unfamiliar people) that constituted

Factor III (eigenvalue 5.06, % variance 10.7) reflected interaction with those persons who are not known to the respondent (outgroup). This factor was thus labeled as 'extended relationship'.

And factor IV (eigenvalue 4.38, % variance 9.3) constituted of those items refer to personal interaction and labeled 'personal'. The test - retest reliability of the 28-item interpersonal relationship Inventory (SII) was evaluated on a sample of 35 subjects with a retesting interval of 3 weeks (Pearson's r = .79).

It has been found that the domain family of interpersonal relationship was the most dominant factor followed by the friend relationship. Therefore interpersonal relationship was found to be more influenced by the family and friend relationship elements of the ingroup structure. In light of the saliency of relationship and identity development in adolescence, these findings have various implications for college counselors and student services aimed at facilitating college adjustment and identity development. The findings add to the growing belief that continued parental involvement can be healthy for an adolescent and may serve as the "secure base" as Bowlby (1982) and Ainsworth (1982) suggested.

In summary, as the major purpose of this study was to create a data-base in terms of dominant domains in the interpersonal relationship pattern in the country which heritages Persian culture, the present study offered a data-base for cultures of society which were little explored in terms of the understanding of interpersonal relationship patterns. These findings should underscore the need for further exploration of the intimate relationships of young adults in different cultures.

Table 1. Factor loadings of Interpersonal Relationship Inventory (N=144)

* Reverse score

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