Parental Attachment and Adult Attachment: The Moderating Role of Dispositional Forgiveness and Gratitude

<p>Secure parental attachment, characterized by trust, care, and autonomy granting, is associated with improved psychological functioning and adjustment to college and is often associated with adult attachment relationships. Similarly, adult attachment, a characteristic of adult relationships, has been associated with improved college adjustment. Individual differences such as dispositional forgiveness and gratitude are often associated with secure adult attachment but have not been examined in relation to parent child attachment. The current study examined dispositional forgiveness and gratitude as moderators of the relationship between parental attachment and adult attachment. A sample of 185 college students participated and as expected, parental attachment inversely predicted anxious and avoidant adult attachment. Further, dispositional gratitude significantly predicted anxious adult attachment. Contrary to hypotheses, results indicated that trait gratitude did not moderate the relationship between parental attachment and adult attachment. Trait forgiveness did not have a significant independent effect on anxious nor avoidant adult attachment but significantly moderated the relationship between parental attachment and anxious adult attachment. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts (MA)

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters Thesis

Year dc:date.available

2018

Author dc:creator

• Ammons, Christian

Contributors dc:contributor

• Bonnie Nicholson
• Melanie Leuty
• Vivian Tamkin

• Parental attachment; Adult attachment; Forgiveness; Gratitude; College students
• Counseling Psychology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://aquila.usm.edu/masters_theses/377

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:aquila.usm.edu:masters_theses-1415