Perceived Paternal and Maternal Attachment and Social Emotional Adjustments Among Early Adolescents

The ethological theory of attachment (Bowlby, 1988) suggests the impacts of parent-child bonding on child adjustments. This study aims to examine relations between parental attachment and early adolescents’ social emotional adjustments and the moderation effects of sex on the associations. A sample of 1349 adolescents aged 12 to 15 years was drawn from a large national study on parenting and child’s well-being (Baharudin, Tan, & Zulkefly, 2010). Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire that incorporated two measures. Parental attachments were measured using the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (Armsden, 1986), and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman, 1997) assessed social emotional adjustments of the adolescents. Causal relationships between variables analyzed using path analysis in structural equation modeling (SEM) depicted direct effects of parental attachment on adolescents’ adjustments. The revised model was good fit to the data. Paternal attachment was significantly related to adolescents’ difficulties, whereas maternal attachment was found to contribute to strengths of the adolescents. Using a multi-group analysis, the findings revealed that causal relationships in the revised model were moderated by sex. Attachment with fathers and mothers seemed to play a different role in children’s social emotional adjustments. Findings advanced understanding of adolescent characteristics and circumstances of parenting that promote positive child adjustments across sex. Implication for family practitioners is the increase of the efficacy of interventions focusing on early adolescence. Future research should consider the unique roles of fathers and mothers in broader contexts and factors that may mediate these links.