Attachment relationships, negative automatic thoughts and psychological problems among late adolescents in Rawalpindi, Pakistan
The foundations for a prospect of a healthy development are established during adolescence. Secure attachment relationships with parents and peer play a significant role in adolescent positive development. However, problems with attachment relationships may result in negative automatic thoughts...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2019
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/90890/1/FPSK%20P%202020%2017%20IR.pdf |
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| Summary: | The foundations for a prospect of a healthy development are established
during adolescence. Secure attachment relationships with parents and peer
play a significant role in adolescent positive development. However,
problems with attachment relationships may result in negative automatic
thoughts and psychological problems among adolescents. Nevertheless, the
mechanism through which attachment relationships predict psychological
problems via negative automatic thoughts has seldom been investigated,
specifically in the Pakistani context. Moreover, similar and distinct etiological
factors for psychological problems among males and females remain
understudied. This study thus, investigated the mediating effect of negative
automatic thoughts in the association between attachment relationships
(maternal, paternal and peer) and psychological problems (depressive and
anxiety symptoms), and the moderating effect of sex among late adolescents
in Pakistan. Bowlby’s attachment theory and Beck’s cognitive theory were
integrated to understand such mechanism among the study variables. A total
of 936 participants (males=423, females=513) aged 17 to 19 were identified
from the government colleges of Rawalpindi, Pakistan through multistage
cluster sampling. Self-administered questionnaires including the Inventory of
Parent and Peer Attachment-Urdu (IPPA-Urdu; Zafar, 2009), Depression,
Anxiety, Stress Scale–Urdu (DASS-Urdu; Zafar, 2014), and Automatic
Thoughts Questionnaire (ATQ-Urdu: Hashmi, 2012) were used to assess
perceptions about attachment relationships, symptoms of depression and
anxiety, and level of negative automatic thoughts. The preliminary statistics
of the constructs including the means, standard deviations, minimum,
maximum, frequencies, correlation and t-test were reported. Structural
equation modelling was applied (AMOS-23 software) to test the models illustrating the hypothesised linkages. All the measures were validated
through confirmatory factor analysis and measurement model. Results from
the present study indicated that the direct and indirect models achieved
appropriate goodness-of-fit. Paternal and peer attachment were found to be
negatively related to depressive symptoms. In contrast, negative automatic
thoughts were positively associated with depressive and anxiety symptoms.
Further, maternal, paternal, and peer attachment were all negatively related
to negative automatic thoughts. Bootstrap analysis showed that negative
automatic thoughts fully mediating the associations of maternal and peer
attachment with depressive and anxiety symptoms, paternal attachment with
anxiety symptoms, whereas, partially mediated the link between paternal
attachment and depressive symptoms. The multi-group analysis
demonstrated the moderating effect of sex in the mediation model. Overall,
the results show that, for males, paternal and peer attachment play a
significant role in determining and maintaining their psychological health.
While for females, insecure maternal, paternal and peer attachment trigger
negative automatic thoughts, which in turn, bring about psychological
problems. The study provides greater insight and understanding of the
integration of attachment and cognitive theories. Additionally, the study
advances understanding of the role of attachment relationships in the
development of positive cognitions during late adolescence and underscores
that secure attachment relationships with parents and peer are required for
the psychological health of late adolescents in Pakistan. Thus, the findings of
this study can be helpful to educator, policy makers, practitioner and clinician
to develop better intervention and prevention plan for youngsters. The
findings help adolescents and parents to improve mental health by improving
their communication and interpersonal relationships. |
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