The Contributions of Parental Socialization of Emotion and Adult Attachment Orientation to Maladaptive Emotion Regulation and Eating Disorders

Emotion regulation deficits are widely understood as an inherent component of eating disorders. Patterns of emotion regulation develop early in life in response to perceived validation or invalidation within attachment relationships with parents. Thus, parental responses to children’s emotions can be considered part of the co-occurring processes of parental socialization of emotion and attachment orientation formation. Extant literature has demonstrated that emotion regulation and interpersonal disturbances are implicated across eating disorder categories. Thus, the current study tested an attachment theory-guided model that included parental socialization of emotion, adult attachment orientations, and emotion regulation as factors contributing to transdiagnostic eating pathology. A sample of 250 undergraduate females at an urban, public university completed online measures of adult attachment orientation, parental socialization of emotion, emotion regulation and eating pathology. Results indicated that parental socialization of emotion and attachment insecurity predicted cognitive and attitudinal dimensions of emotion regulation, which predicted behavioral deficits in emotion regulation. Behavioral deficits in emotion regulation predicted eating pathology. Future directions for research include replication of this study in a clinical sample and extension of the sample to include male participants. Clinical implications include tailoring eating disorder interventions to the individual’s specific areas of emotion regulation deficits and unresolved interpersonal issues.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

Doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Counseling Psychology

Grantor

University of Houston

Year dc:date.issued

2017

Author dc:creator

• Wang, Jennifer

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Lopez, Frederick G.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Wolfe, Rachel S.
• Burridge, Andrea Backscheider
• Nutt, Roberta L.

• Eating disorders
• Attachment
• Emotion regulation

Statement dc:rights

• The author of this work is the copyright owner. UH Libraries and the Texas Digital Library have their permission to store and provide access to this work. Further transmission, reproduction, or presentation of this work is prohibited except with permission of the author(s).

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/10657/4536

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:uh-ir.tdl.org:10657/4536