On the Links Between Attachment Style, Parental Rearing Behaviors, and Internalizing and Externalizing Problems in Non-Clinical Children

  We sought to investigate the relationships between negative family factors such as insecure attachment and adverse parental rearing, and internalizing and externalizing symptoms in a large sample of non-clinical children (N = 237) aged 9 to 12 years. All children completed a set of self-report questionnaires including a single-item measure of attachment style towards the mother and the father as well as an index of perceived parental rearing behaviors. Further, measures of internalizing symptoms (e.g., anxiety and depression) and externalizing symptoms (e.g., aggression) were completed. Results showed that perceived rearing behaviors of both mother and father (in particular rejection and anxious rearing) consistently accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Attachment style was found to play a less prominent role. Some support for gender-specific relationships was found, indicating that the presence of negative family factors in fathers had more impact on symptoms in boys, whereas the presence of such factors in the mothers had more influence on symptoms in girls. Altogether, these results suggest that in addition to common pathways by which both parents promote psychopathological symptoms in children, there may also be separate pathways by which the father or the mother may have a unique impact on the development of such symptoms in boys or girls respectively.     

Worry in children is related to perceived parental rearing and attachment

In a sample of 159 primary school children, the relationship between perceived parental rearing behaviours and self-reported attachment style, on the one hand, and worry, on the other hand, was investigated. Children completed (a) the EMBU, a questionnaire measuring perceptions of parental rearing behaviours, (b) a single-item measure of attachment style, and (c) the Penn State Worry Questionnaire for Children (PSWQ-C), an index of severity of worrying. Results showed that parental rearing behaviours, in particular rejection and anxious rearing, were positively associated with worry. Thus, children who perceived their parents as more rejective and anxious reported higher levels of worry. Furthermore, self-reported attachment style appeared to be related to worry. More specifically, children who classified themselves as avoidantly or ambivalently attached displayed higher levels of worry than did children who classified themselves as securely attached. These findings are consistent with the notion that family environment factors such as parental rearing and attachment style contribute to the severity of anxiety symptoms in children.     

Attachment, Behavioral Inhibition, and Anxiety Disorders Symptoms in Normal Adolescents

The current study examined relationships between attachment style, behavioral inhibition, and anxiety disorders symptoms not only relying on youths' self-report but also including the parents' point of view. A large group of young adolescents aged 11–15 years and their parents (N = 280) completed measures of attachment style and behavioral inhibition and the Revised Children's Anxiety and Depression Scale, a questionnaire designed to measure symptoms of anxiety disorders in terms of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Highly similar results were found for child and parent report. That is, attachment style and behavioral inhibition were found to be interrelated with insecure attachment being associated with higher levels of behavioral inhibition. Furthermore, adolescents who were classified as insecurely attached and/or high on behavioral inhibition displayed higher levels of anxiety disorders symptoms. Finally, attachment status and behavioral inhibition both accounted for a unique proportion of the variance of anxiety disorders symptomatology.     

Correlates of Self-reported Attachment (In)security in Children: The Role of Parental Romantic Attachment Status and Rearing Behaviors

We investigated the influence of self-reported parental romantic attachment status and rearing behaviors on children’s self-reported attachment (in)security towards father and mother in a sample of 237 non-clinical children aged 9–12. All children and their parents completed a single-item measure of attachment style. The parents further completed an index of their authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive rearing behaviors. Results showed that the attachment status of the father was significantly related to the child’s attachment style to the father. Further, children who portray themselves as insecurely attached to their fathers have fathers with lower average authoritative scores compared to children who are securely attached to their fathers. In examining the relative contribution of attachment style and rearing behaviors of the parents, insecure attachment status of the father was still significantly related to insecure attachment style of the child but the effect of authoritative rearing behaviors of the father on attachment (in)security of children was not statistically significant anymore. Altogether, these results support the notion that attachment status of the father was most substantially associated with self-reported insecure attachment of children.     

A Multifactorial Model for the Etiology of Anxiety in Non-Clinical Adolescents: Main and Interactive Effects of Behavioral Inhibition, Attachment and Parental Rearing

There has been limited research examining the additive and interactive effects of multiple factors on the development of anxiety symptoms and anxiety disorders in youths. This study was an attempt to examine the reciprocal connections among temperament, attachment, and rearing style, and their unique and interactive relations to anxiety symptoms. Six hundred forty-four non-clinical children aged 11–15 years (mean age = 12.7 years) completed questionnaires measuring behavioral inhibition, attachment, parental rearing behavior, and anxiety symptoms. Results indicated that there were small to moderate positive correlations among various risk factors. Furthermore, modest but significant positive correlations were found between behavioral inhibition, attachment quality, and anxious and controlling rearing behaviors on the one hand, and anxiety scores on the other hand. That is, higher levels of behavioral inhibition, insecure attachment, and parental control and anxious rearing were associated with higher levels of anxiety symptoms. Finally, behavioral inhibition, attachment quality, parental control and anxious rearing each accounted for a small but unique proportion of the variance of anxiety disorders symptomatology. Little support was found for interactive effects of these vulnerability factors on childhood anxiety.     

Differences in Internalizing and Externalizing Problems Among Early Adolescent Subtypes Based on Attachment Security

The study examined the influence of adolescents’ secure attachment to both versus one parent on their psychosocial adjustment in terms of self and parent evaluations of internalizing and externalizing behaviour problems. The sample consisting of 8th grade adolescents (n?=?406; 178 girls) aged 12–14 years were classified into four subgroups based on their attachment security to their father and mother. The study aimed to test the differences in internalizing and externalizing problems among the four subgroups- of adolescents with secure attachment to both parents, to only mother, to only father and insecure attachment to father and mother. The results showed that more number of adolescents were classified as securely attached to mothers than to fathers. The group of adolescents who felt securely attached to both parents was psychosocially most well adjusted, while those with insecure attachment to both parents were most vulnerable to maladjustment. In addition, secure attachment only to one’s mother and not to one’s father was a protective factor against maladjustment, while secure attachment to father alone was not. The study helps to understand how parent-adolescent secure attachment contributed to differences in psychosocial adjustment among these subgroups of normal adolescents.     

Parental Depression and Economic Disadvantage: The Role of Parenting in Associations with Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms in Children and Adolescents

This study examined the effects of parental depression symptoms, economic disadvantage, and parenting behaviors in 180 children and adolescents of depressed parents (ages 9–15 years-old). Analyses revealed that while parental depression symptoms, economic disadvantage, and disrupted parenting behaviors were related to children’s internalizing and externalizing symptoms, disrupted parenting (e.g., intrusive, neglectful parenting) accounted for the association of parental depressive symptoms and economic disadvantage with children’s symptoms. This study provides evidence that disrupted parenting may be a common or shared process through which both parental depression and economic disadvantage are associated with children’s internalizing and externalizing problems.     

Bound to Feel Bad About Oneself: Relations Between Attachment and the Self-conscious Emotions of Guilt and Shame in Children and Adolescents

Two cross-sectional studies were conducted to explore the relationship between attachment and the self-conscious emotions of guilt and shame in childhood. Study 1 was performed in non-clinical children aged 9–13 years (N = 688) who completed a single-item measure of attachment style and a vignette-based instrument for assessing guilt and shame. Results showed that children who classified themselves as insecurely attached displayed higher levels of shame and maladaptive types of guilt as compared to securely attached children. Study 2 was conducted in adolescents aged 12–18 years (N = 135), of whom the majority was referred to a clinical setting because of externalizing problems. Adolescents filled in a dimensional scale for measuring attachment quality to parents and peers and the above mentioned vignette-based instrument of guilt and shame. It was found that the clinical adolescents generally exhibited lower levels of self-conscious emotions as compared to non-clinical adolescents. Within this clinical group, communication to parents and peers was associated with higher levels of self-conscious emotions, and alienation was accompanied by higher levels of maladaptive forms of guilt and shame. Altogether, these results fit with the theory that attachment (in)security is involved in people’s proneness to experience self-conscious emotions.     

Problem Behaviors in Adolescence: The Opposite Role Played by Insecure Attachment and Commitment Strength

In this study we examined the relations between insecure attachment styles, commitment and behavioral problems, focusing on the unique and common contribution that avoidant and anxious styles and commitment made to internalizing and externalizing problems. 535 adolescents, 267 boys and 268 girls, aged from 16 to 18 years, completed self-report measures of attachment, identity and problem behaviors. The data showed that both internalizing and externalizing problems were positively related to insecure attachment styles and negatively to commitment. Results supported a unique contribution of both insecure styles to the prediction of internalizing and externalizing problems, whereas commitment negatively predicted only internalizing behaviors. The data supported a joint effect of avoidant attachment and commitment such that commitment contributed to moderate the display of internalizing and externalizing problems among avoidant adolescents.     

Modeling relations between hassles and internalizing and externalizing symptoms in adolescents: a four-year prospective study

This study examined the relations between hassles and internalizing and externalizing symptoms across 4 years in adolescents who varied with regard to their risk for psychopathology. The sample comprised 240 adolescents assessed in 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th grades regarding their level of peer and academic hassles and internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Structural equation modeling was used to construct latent variables of hassles and internalizing and externalizing syndromes. Results varied by informant about the teens' symptoms. For adolescent report, the stress exposure model fit the data best for internalizing syndromes; that is, higher levels of stressors predicted significantly higher levels of self-reported symptoms 1 year later. For mother report of adolescents' symptoms, the stress generation model fit the data best for both internalizing and externalizing syndromes; that is, higher levels of adolescents' internalizing and externalizing symptoms, as reported by their mothers, significantly predicted higher levels of hassles 1 year later.     

父母情绪表达与青少年问题行为:亲子依恋、孤独感的多重中介效应

本研究以西安市两所中学的211名初一学生和477名高一学生共计688名学生为被试,探讨了父母情绪表达对青少年问题行为的影响,以及亲子依恋和孤独感在父母情绪表达与青少年问题行为间的中介作用,采用《父母情绪表达问卷》、《亲密关系体验量表》、《孤独感量表》、《青少年自评量表》进行测量研究。结果表明：父母情绪表达、亲子依恋、孤独感和青少年内、外化问题两两间存在显著相关;亲子依恋与孤独感在父母情绪表达与青少年问题行为间起多重中介作用,父母情绪表达既可直接影响青少年问题行为,也可以通过不安全依恋、孤独感各自独立的中介作用和不安全依恋、孤独感的链式中介作用影响青少年问题行为。本研究揭示了父母情绪表达与青少年问题行为的关系及其作用机制,拓展了父母情绪社会化对个体心理社会适应的研究。     

Are ethnic minority adolescents at risk for problem behaviour? Acculturation and intergenerational acculturation discrepancies in early adolescence

The present study investigated the adjustment of Indian adolescents living in Britain as well as the links between parents' and adolescents' acculturation styles and the adolescents' problem behaviours. The sample consisted of 68 young adolescents (31 Indian and 37 English) between the ages of 10 and 13, and their mothers and fathers. Mothers, fathers and adolescents reported about their own acculturation style, and parents also reported on their adolescents' problem behaviour. Overall Indian adolescents exhibited more internalizing problems than did their English peers. Furthermore, within the Indian group, the more Westernized mothers were in their acculturation style, the higher the level of externalizing problem behaviour their adolescents exhibited. In addition, the more traditional adolescents were the more internalizing problems they displayed. Finally, Indian adolescents experienced more internalizing problems when their parents were more Western or less traditional than the adolescents themselves. These findings highlight the importance of examining not only parental acculturation style, but also the parent–child acculturation discrepancy as a risk factor for problem behaviour.     

In the Eye of the Beholder? Parental Ratings of Externalizing and Internalizing Symptoms

Variations in ratings of externalizing and internalizing symptoms may contain a trait (i.e., shared view) component when behavioral symptoms that generalize across context are perceived and an individual view component when they are misperceived or when each informant has access to different symptoms. Using a LISREL model, we estimated the trait and the informant-specific, individual view components in parental ratings of externalizing and internalizing symptoms of adolescent siblings. The model demonstrated that mothers' and fathers' ratings contained a substantial individual view component (from 21% to 50% of total rating variance, depending on rater and trait). Except for fathers' ratings of internalizing symptoms (13%), parental ratings also contained a substantial trait component (42% to 58%). Mother's, father's, and child's ratings may be averaged to estimate a trait of externalizing. To estimate an internalizing trait, it may be best to combine just the mother's rating with the child's self-rating.     

Infant-mother attachment classification: risk and protection in relation to changing maternal caregiving quality

The relations between early infant-mother attachment and children's social competence and behavior problems during the preschool and early school-age period were examined in more than 1,000 children under conditions of decreasing, stable, and increasing maternal parenting quality. Infants' Strange Situation attachment classifications predicted mothers' reports of children's social competence and teachers' reports of externalizing and internalizing behaviors from preschool age through 1st grade. These relations appeared to be mediated by parenting quality; main effects of attachment classification disappeared when effects of parenting quality were controlled. Interactions were also observed. For example, when parenting quality improved over time, teachers rated children with insecure infant-mother attachments lower on externalizing behaviors; when parenting quality decreased, teachers rated insecure children higher on externalizing behaviors. In contrast, children classified as securely attached in infancy did not appear to be affected by declining or improving parenting quality.     

The Impact of Maternal Depression and Parenting Behaviors on Adolescents' Psychological Functioning in Romania

We examined the impact of maternal depression and parenting behaviors on adolescents' psychological functioning in Romania. The direct and indirect links between maternal depression, maternal acceptance, behavioral control, psychological control and adolescent internalizing and externalizing behaviors were analyzed. The sample consisted of 239, 12–14 year-old adolescents and their mothers. Results indicated that higher maternal depression were associated with higher levels of psychological control and higher levels of internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Higher levels of behavioral control were associated with higher levels of internalizing and externalizing behaviors in adolescents.     

Parenting and Friendship Quality as Predictors of Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms in Early Adolescence

Research indicates both parents and peers influence child and adolescent adjustment outcomes. Moreover, friendship quality has been found to buffer the influence of parenting on adolescent adjustment, particularly externalizing symptoms. Little to no research, however, has longitudinally examined whether friendship quality moderates the relation between parenting and adolescent internalizing symptoms. Accordingly, our study examines friendship quality as a moderator of the relation between parenting (positive parenting, poor parental monitoring, inconsistent discipline, parental involvement) and adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms over one year’s time. The sample included 65 early adolescents (67% male), ages 10–13 at initial assessment. Friendship quality buffered the effect of positive parenting on internalizing symptoms over time. However, no moderating effects for externalizing symptoms were found. Implications and further directions are discussed.     

The relation between dimensions of attachment and internalizing or externalizing problems during adolescence

The authors examined the relation between dimensions of attachment and internalizing and externalizing problems in 15- to 16-year-old adolescents (n = 62) who completed the Attachment Style Questionnaire (ASQ; J. Feeney, P. Noller, & M. Hanrahan, 1994) and the Youth Self-Report (YSR; T. M. Achenbach, 1991). In total, the ASQ dimensions accounted for 48% of the variance in scores on the broad YSR internalizing problem scale. Three ASQ dimensions (confidence, discomfort with closeness, preoccupation with relationships) accounted for unique variance. Girls exhibited higher problem scores than did boys even when the authors considered ASQ scores. The authors observed comparable results for the anxious/depressed subscales. The confidence, discomfort, and preoccupation dimensions predicted scores on the withdrawn subscale. The authors observed weak relations or no relations between results on the ASQ and the externalizing problems scale. In conclusion, dimensions of attachment are powerful predictors of internalizing problems in adolescents. The authors discussed the potential cause and effect relationship between attachment variables and self-reported problems.     

Parental rearing behavior prospectively predicts adolescents’ risky decision‐making and feedback‐related electrical brain activity

The present study examined the role of parental rearing behavior in adolescents’ risky decision‐making and the brain's feedback processing mechanisms. Healthy adolescent participants (n = 110) completed the EMBU‐C, a self‐report questionnaire on perceived parental rearing behaviors between 2006 and 2008 (T1). Subsequently, after an average of 3.5 years, we assessed (a) risky decision‐making during performance of the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART); (b) event‐related brain potentials (ERPs) elicited by positive (gain) and negative feedback (loss) during the BART; and (c) self‐reported substance use behavior (T2). Age‐corrected regression analyses showed that parental rejection at T1 accounted for a unique and significant proportion of the variance in risk‐taking during the BART; the more adolescents perceived their parents as rejecting, the more risky decisions were made. Higher levels of perceived emotional warmth predicted increased P300 amplitudes in response to positive feedback at T2. Moreover, these larger P300 amplitudes (gain) significantly predicted risky decision‐making during the BART. Parental rearing behaviors during childhood thus seem to be significant predictors of both behavioral and electrophysiological indices of risky decision‐making in adolescence several years later. This is in keeping with the notion that environmental factors such as parental rearing are important in explaining adolescents’ risk‐taking propensities.     

The Role of Parental and Adolescent Attributions in Adjustment of Adolescents with Chronic Illness

Previous literature has demonstrated the separate contributions of parental attributions and adolescent attributions to psychosocial adjustment of adolescents with chronic illness. However, it is unknown whether parental attributions affect adolescents' mental health directly or indirectly by influencing the youths' attributional style. This study evaluated the direct and indirect (through adolescent attributions) effects of parental attributions on internalizing and externalizing problems of adolescents with chronic illness. Adolescents (N?=?128; M?=?14.7?years) diagnosed with cystic fibrosis or diabetes and their caregivers completed measures of attributional style and adolescent adjustment. Parents' optimistic attributions were associated with fewer adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems. These effects were partly mediated by adolescent attributions. These results suggest that targeting both adolescent and parent attributions may be important for improving adolescents' adjustment to a chronic illness.