Can attachment and peer relation constructs predict anxiety in ethnic minority youths? A longitudinal exploratory study

Relationship Between Father-Child Attachment and Adolescents' Anxiety: The Bidirectional Chain Mediating Roles of Neuroticism and Peer Attachment

Background

Adolescent anxiety is closely associated with the quality of parent-child attachment. However, previous studies have predominantly focused on the impact of mother-child attachment. Little is known about the direct and indirect associations of father-child attachment on adolescent anxiety.

Purpose

This study aims to investigate the association and underlying mechanisms that link father-child attachment and adolescent anxiety. A bidirectional chain mediating model was constructed to test whether neuroticism and peer attachment play bidirectional mediating roles in father-child attachment and adolescent anxiety.

Methods

The proposed model was examined among 763 adolescents aged 11-16 years (male 53.1%) from four middle schools in Central China. Students completed questionnaires on father-child attachment, anxiety, neuroticism and peer attachment. The correlation and bidirectional chain mediating effect analyses were conducted using SPSS Process.

Results

(1) Father-child attachment negatively correlated with adolescent anxiety and neuroticism, and positively correlated with peer attachment; (2) Father-child attachment had an indirect association on adolescent anxiety through three pathways: a partial mediating effect on neuroticism, a partial mediating effect on peer attachment, and a bidirectional chain mediating effect involving both neuroticism and peer attachment.

Conclusion

This study revealed father-child attachment has an indirect association with adolescent anxiety through the bidirectional chain mediation of neuroticism and peer attachment. These empirical findings shed light on the intricate dynamic between father-child attachment and anxiety among Chinese adolescents, highlighting the crucial role of fathers in the prevention and reduction of adolescent anxiety from the perspectives of father-child dynamics, personal traits, and interpersonal relationships.

A Road Map for Navigating Next Steps in the Study of Attachment in Middle Childhood: Commentary on Gastelle and Kerns

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A Systematic Review of Representational and Behavioral Measures of Parent-Child Attachment Available for Middle Childhood

A variety of parent-child attachment measures, representing a range of conceptual approaches, have been adapted for use in middle childhood. A recent surge in studies using the new methods makes a comprehensive review of these measures timely. This systematic review of 67 studies covers representational and behavioral measures of parent-child attachment used with children 9-12 years old. This paper aims to evaluate parent-child attachment measurements with an emphasis on understanding their theoretical bases in addition to considering the available validity evidence. Findings identify several independently well-validated representational measures, and they highlight a continued need to investigate direct comparisons of the measures, as very little research has considered how the measures relate to each other, both conceptually and empirically. Behavioral measures of attachment in middle childhood, which are relatively new, are identified as potentially important in developing a better understanding of attachment measurement in this age group.

Commentary: Money can't buy you love, but lack of love costs families and society plenty - a comment on Bachmann et al. (2019)

The target paper on the costs of (lack of) love underscores the ongoing need for early preventive interventions that support parents, both mothers and fathers, aiming to provide for their children. With effective targeting of such interventions, the emergence of children's antisocial behavioral problems may be greatly lessened. In addition to the economic costs to family and society of caring for children with moderate or severe antisocial behavior problems is substantial, the costs in terms of diminished health and well-being may persist across the lifespan. Recent research on attachment and physical health adds to the evidence base pointing to the substantial economic burdens, falling to families, schools, and health services, when insecurity or disorganization of attachment typifies early parent-child relationships. Further research ought to give consideration to potentially moderating or compensatory relationships that otherwise vulnerable youth may develop to supportive peers, siblings or teachers.

The Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale: A systematic review and reliability generalization meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Anxiety and depression are among the most common mental disorders during childhood and adolescence. Among the instruments for the brief screening assessment of symptoms of anxiety and depression, the Revised Child Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS) is one of the more widely used. Previous studies have demonstrated the reliability of the RCADS for different assessment settings and different versions. The aims of this study were to examine the mean reliability of the RCADS and the influence of the moderators on the RCADS reliability.

METHODS

We searched in EBSCO, PsycINFO, Google Scholar, Web of Science, and NCBI databases and other articles manually from lists of references of extracted articles.

RESULTS

A total of 146 studies were included in our meta-analysis. The RCADS showed robust internal consistency reliability in different assessment settings, countries, and languages. We only found that reliability of the RCADS was significantly moderated by the version of RCADS. However, these differences in reliability between different versions of the RCADS were slight and can be due to the number of items.

LIMITATIONS

We did not examine factor structure, factorial invariance across gender, age, or country, and test-retest reliability of the RCADS.

CONCLUSIONS

The RCADS is a reliable instrument for cross-cultural use, with the advantage of providing more information with a low number of items in the assessment of both anxiety and depression symptoms in children and adolescents.