Intergenerational transmission of late-adolescent adult attachment styles: Does attachment recur?

Abstract

This study was conducted to examine intergenerational transmission of attachment styles between late-adolescent children and their mothers. The purpose of the study was to reveal whether the two attachment dimensions, "Anxiety (about relationship)" and "Avoidance (of intimacy)" were related between children and their mothers, and whether these relations were mediated by the both children's and mothers' perceptions of parenting. Participants were 209 pairs of late-adolescent children and their mothers. Results revealed that the attachment dimensions of "Anxiety" and "Avoidance" in children significantly correlated to the same dimensions in their mothers. Based on attachment theory, it was hypothesized that intergenerational transmission of attachment styles was caused by the influence of the following factors: "(a) mothers' attachment styles, (b) mothers' perceptions of parenting, (c) children's perceptions of their mothers' parenting, and (d) children's attachment styles", and possible causal models of the influence processes among those variables were developed and tested in the data analyses. The results showed the validity of these processes for the intergenerational transmission of attachment styles. These results are discussed in terms of the relationships between children and mothers and late-adolescent/adult attachment styles.