Article

The Effects of Adult Attachment, Mother's Negative Emotions, and Emotion Regulation Styles on Parenting Behavior

Author

하유미,박성연

Information

pp. 175~195 / 2012 Vol.19 No.2

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop a structural model for the associations between a mother's adult attachment, negative emotions, and emotion regulation styles and parenting behavior. The participants consisted of 735 mothers of 3-to 5-year-old preschool children attending nursery and kindergarten or home schooling centers in Seoul and 5 metropolitan areas(M age=33.9 yrs; SD=3.4).Data were collected through self-reporting questionnaires for mothers and analyzed by means of Structural Equation Modeling analysis. The results revealed that; 1) Anxiety attachment and avoidance attachment had an influence upon parenting behavior via a number of different pathways. That is, anxiety attachment was observed to have both direct effect and indirect effects mediated by negative emotions and emotion regulation styles upon parenting behavior. However, anxiety attachment appeared not to have a direct effect upon emotion regulation styles. 2) Avoidance attachment did not appear to have a direct effect on parenting behavior and had an indirect effect which was clearly mediated by negative emotions and emotion regulation styles. 3) Both anxiety attachment and avoidance attachment had direct effects on negative emotions and emotion regulation styles, indicating that negative emotions and emotion regulation styles mediated the associations between adult attachment and parenting behavior. 4) Anxiety attachment had a greater impact on negative emotions whereas avoidance attachment had a greater impact on emotion regulation styles.

Keywords