Parents’ Attachment Styles and Adolescents’ Regulatory Emotional Self-efficacy: The Mediating Role of Adolescents’ Attachment to Parents in China

Yangu Pan, Qiongwen Zhang (), Guangzeng Liu, Bingbing Li and Chuanxing Liu
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Yangu Pan: Research Institute of Social Development, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics
Qiongwen Zhang: Research Institute of Social Development, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics
Guangzeng Liu: Southwest University
Bingbing Li: Educational College, Shanghai Normal University
Chuanxing Liu: Sichuan Education Evaluation Institute

Applied Research in Quality of Life, 2022, vol. 17, issue 5, No 11, 2637-2656

Abstract: Abstract Guided by attachment theory, this longitudinal study examined the mediating role of parent-adolescent attachment on the relation between parents’ attachment styles and adolescents’ regulatory emotional self-efficacy (RESE, including managing negative affect and expressing positive affect). Five hundred seventy-three Chinese junior high school students (46% male; aged 11–14 years, M = 12.76 years, SD = 0.74) completed measures of RESE at T1, parent-adolescent attachment at T2 (six months later), and RESE at T3 (another six months later), while 573 students’ parents (one student only has a parent, 241 fathers and 332 mothers) completed measures of adult attachment styles (anxiety and avoidance) at T1. Results from structural equation modeling indicated that father-adolescent attachment mediated the association between fathers’ attachment anxiety and adolescents’ self-efficacy beliefs in managing negative affect, while mother-adolescent attachment marginally mediated the relation between mothers’ attachment anxiety and adolescents’ self-efficacy beliefs in managing negative affect and expressing positive affect. These findings suggest that parents’ attachment anxiety could predict their children’s attachment to parents, in turn, impacting their children’s regulatory emotional self-efficacy.

Keywords: Adult attachment style; Father-adolescent attachment; Mother-adolescent attachment; Regulatory emotional self-efficacy; Early adolescents; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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DOI: 10.1007/s11482-021-09991-x

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