Poster #61 - Parental Conflict, Attachment Anxiety, and Somatic and Depressive Symptoms: Differential Associations by Family Structure

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Developmental Psychopathology

Integrative Statement

Exposure to parental conflict is associated with elevated vulnerability to somatic and depressive symptoms (Amato & Keith, 1991). Recently, a sense of emotional insecurity derived from the context of attachment relationships has emerged to be a powerful factor accounting for the links between parental conflict and undesirable outcomes (Cummings & Davies, 2011). However, questions remain as to how attachment insecurity functions differently across family structures. The purpose of this study was to contrast the mediating roles of attachment insecurity between divorced and intact families.
A total of 679 college students (477 females, mean age = 20.7, SD = 4.0) were recruited; 210 (146 females, mean age = 20.5, SD = 4.4) of the participants reported parental divorce before age of 16. In addition to providing demographic information, participants responded to 1) the Children’s Perception of Interparental Conflict Scale (CPIC; Grych, Seid, & Fincham, 1992), 2) the Experience in Close Relationship Scale –Short Form (ECR-SF; Wei, Russell, Mallinckrodt, & Vogel, 2007), 3) the Somatization Scale of the Symptom Checklist–90—Revised (SCL-90-R, Derogatis, 1994), 4) the Depression subscale of the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21; Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995), 5) the Care subscale (12 items) of the Parent Bonding Instrument (PBI; Parker, Tupling, & Brown, 1979), and 6) the Painful Feelings about Divorce Scale (PFAD; Laumann-Billings & Emery, 2000).
Multi-group structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to contrast the mediating roles of attachment anxiety across divorced and intact families. The model included (1) the measure of parental conflict (CPIC-Total) as the predictor, (2) attachment anxiety (ECR-Anxiety) as the mediator, and (3) a latent outcome variable of perceived general well-being comprising the measures of somatic symptoms (SCL-90-R) and depressive symptoms (DASS-21-Depression). For the divorced group, when attachment anxiety was added as a mediator, the direct path from parental conflict to the latent variable of symptoms turned from significant (b = 0.21, S.E. = 0.09, t = 2.36, CI: [.04, .39]) to nonsignificant (b = .13, S.E. = .08, t = 1.71, CI: [-.03, .28]); the indirect effect was significant, b = .10, S.E. = .04, t = 2.29, CI: [.03, .19] (bias corrected at 95% confidence interval yielded by a bootstrapping procedure with 5000 resamples). The model provided a good fit to the data: CFI = .994, SRMR = .017, RMSEA = 0.046, 90% Confidence Interval (CI): [.00, .12], χ2 = 5.87, p = .21. Data from the intact group did not reveal the same mediation pattern, evidencing differential roles of attachment anxiety. The findings denote the adverse effects of parental divorce above and beyond those of parental conflict on somatic and depressive symptoms. Except for those families with long lasting and high levels of conflict (Strohschein, 2005), the family context of divorce likely imposes greater noxious threats to felt emotional security than one that remained intact despite the existence of parental conflict. Revising and reformulating anxious working models of attachment may prove to be fruitful to improving well-being of individuals exposed to parental conflict, particularly those from divorced families.

Authors

• Hung-Chu Lin, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
  Presenting Author

• Yang Yang, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
  Non-Presenting Author

• Luke Elliott, Better Options Initiative
  Non-Presenting Author