Culture-informed perspective on relations between adolescents' attachment and perception of maternal parenting

Lubiewska, Katarzyna; Mayer, Boris; Albert, Isabella; Trommsdorff, Gisela (2 March 2017). Culture-informed perspective on relations between adolescents' attachment and perception of maternal parenting (Unpublished). In: 46th Annual Meeting of the Society for Cross-Cultural Research. New Orleans, LA, USA. 01.03.-04.03.2017.

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Ainsworth conceptualized acceptance (vs rejection) as one of four key features of parental care related with sensitivity that help organize secure base behavior of children. She also indicated that the expression of parental sensitivity varies across cultures and may be related with other parenting behaviors. Even though culture influences attachment development stronger beyond infancy, attachment studies are carried out mainly in early childhood. Parenting studies seems to provide broader perspective unfolding multidimensionality of parenting and related developmental outcomes in later development. Although, parenting research tap parental sensitivity and attachment less directly than attachment research, they seem to indicate adequately the directions for further research. Linking concepts and using instruments from both frameworks, we set out to answer the question how is adolescents’ mental representation of maternal acceptance, rejection and control related to their attachment in diverse cultures?
A sample of 3079 adolescents (between 14 and 17 years old) was studied in 10 national groups commonly recognized as Western, Post-Communist, Middle-East and Asian cultures. The parenting PARQ/Control instrument as well as the Adult Attachment Scale were used. Results revealed positive effects of parental acceptance and negative effects of perceived rejection on adolescents’ attachment security in Western cultures. Moreover, parental control predicted adolescents’ attachment insecurity in Post-Communist countries. Interpreting our results in line with attachment theory we suggest that maternal rejection/acceptance should have the same adverse/positive effect on children in each culture, nonetheless acceptance, rejection or control may carry the message of maternal warmth differently across cultures. Thus, our study contributes to a broader theoretical approach to predict adolescents` attachment by maternal sensitivity in various contexts.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Division/Institute:	07 Faculty of Human Sciences > Institute of Psychology > Cognitive Psychology, Perception and Methodology
UniBE Contributor:	Mayer, Boris
Subjects:	100 Philosophy > 150 Psychology
Language:	English
Submitter:	Boris Mayer
Date Deposited:	08 Aug 2017 09:38
Last Modified:	05 Dec 2022 15:04
URI:	https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/97659