Associations between parental emotional warmth, parental attachment, peer attachment, and adolescents’ character strengths

Abstract

The present study sought to investigate how parental emotional warmth and attachments jointly contribute to adolescents’ character strengths. The Chinese version of the Short-Form Egna Minnen av Barndoms Uppfostran (s-EMBU-C), the simplified Chinese version of the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment-Revised (IPPA-R), and the VIA Inventory of Strengths for Youth (VIA-Youth) were administered to 1380 adolescents ( M age = 14.43 years, SD = 0.93 years; 49.5% girls) to measure their parental emotional warmth, parental attachment, peer attachment, and character strengths. The results showed a significant positive correlation between parental emotional warmth, parental attachment, peer attachment, and adolescents’ character strengths. Parental emotional warmth contributed to adolescents’ character strengths via the serial multiple mediating effects of parental attachment and peer attachment. Moreover, parental attachment contributed to adolescents’ character strengths via the serial multiple mediating effects of parental emotional warmth and peer attachment. Gender-specific results were not found for these relationships. Our findings revealed the possible mechanisms of the influence of parental emotional warmth and attachments on adolescents’ character strengths and provided further insights into the development of character strengths during adolescence.