the relationship between parenting styles and parental attachment: first year college students.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between parenting style and perceived parental attachment in first year college students. The sample consisted of 64 traditional, freshman volunteers (17 males and 47 females) who were 18 to 19 years of age with their natural mother and natural father still together, had completed high school in the past calendar year, and were enrolled in undergraduate psychology courses at a midwestern regional state university. Participants completed a demographic questionnaire, two forms of the Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ; Buri, Louiselle, Misukanis, & Mueller, 1988), one for each parent, and the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA; Armsden & Greenberg, 1987) . Utilizing responses from both parent forms of the PAQ and the IPPA, separate multiple regression analyses were performed for mother-adolescent and father-adolescent questionnaires, respectively. The three parenting style subscale scores (Authoritativeness, Authoritarianism, and Permissiveness) were used as predictor variables, while the criterion variable was the level of attachment. For mothers, multiple regression analysis revealed 56% of the variance of attachment was accounted for by overall parenting style, F(2, 61) = 25.05, p < .001. For fathers, analysis revealed 36% of the variance of attachment was accounted for by overall parenting style, F(2, 61) = 11.48, p < .001. Examination of the data revealed that use of the authoritative parenting style was associated with higher levels of attachment to both the mother and father. In contrast, those participants raised with an authoritarian parenting style noted a much lower attachment, thus showing a direct inverse relationship. Finally, while a slight correlation was noted when analyzing permissiveness separately with attachment, the relationship between these two variables was nonsignificant when all parenting styles were considered simultaneously. The significant relationship between authoritative parenting and high attachment suggests the importance of authoritative parenting beyond childhood. The need for recognition of low parental attachment due to authoritarian parenting should also be noted. Further research with the adolescent age group is warranted to investigate these findings.