Early Evidence of Parental Attachment Among Polish Adolescents.

Elisa Delvecchio,Hanna Liberska,Adriana Lis,Claudia Mazzeschi,Jian-Bin Li

doi:10.5964/ejop.v16i1.1809

Abstract

Parental attachment is important for adolescents’ development as well as cultural context. Poland used to be collectivist but now is closer to individualistic due to social and economic transformation. Few studies have examined parental attachment and self-esteem among Polish adolescents. This descriptive study (N = 303 Polish adolescents) investigated the levels of parental attachment, gender differences, preferred attachment figure, association with self-esteem and cultural differences with collectivistic (China) and individualistic (Italy) cultures. The results indicated that: (1) there was no gender difference in parental attachment; (2) mother was the preferred attachment figure; (3) parental attachment was related to self-esteem; and (4) cultural differences were found. Findings were discussed in terms of Polish sociopolitical situation.

Highlights

Parental attachment is important for adolescents’ development as well as cultural context
Prior research has found that parental attachment varies across cultural values and family orientation (Chen, French, & Schneider, 2006; Li, Delvecchio, Miconi, Salcuni, & Di Riso, 2014; Song, Thompson, & Ferrer, 2009; Trommsdorff, 2006), suggesting that cultural context should be taken into account in order to better understand attachment to parents
No significant gender difference in total and dimension scores of maternal and paternal attachment was found, suggesting that levels of parental attachment were similar for boys and girls

Summary

Introduction

Parental attachment is important for adolescents’ development as well as cultural context. Social norms of behavior, working rules, values, parental and gender roles that successfully organized the life of individuals and their families for the last fifty years during the collectivistic communist culture became non-adaptive and useless. This phenomenon, defined in terms of social anomy, must have had an impact on the family processes, especially with regard to the family orientation which is considered to be the core for Polish culture (Boski, 2009; Inglehart & Welzel, 2005; Nowak, 1979; Siemieńska, 2008). The current study aimed to examine four issues described below

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion