Abstract
Background: Attachment and emotion regulation play a decisive role in the developmental pathways of adaptation or maladaptation. This study tested concurrent and longitudinal associations between the attachment to mother and father, sadness regulation, and depressive symptoms. Methods: A total of 1110 participants from middle childhood to adolescence completed measures of attachment, emotion regulation, and depressive symptomatology. In total, 307 of them participated in the longitudinal assessment. Results: Results revealed attachment affects emotion regulation strategies and depressive symptoms. Furthermore, we found linear effects of the cumulative number of secure attachment relationships on adaptive and maladaptive deactivating sadness regulation, as well as on depressive symptoms. Longitudinal analysis showed the significant mediating role of sadness regulation in the relationship between attachment and depressive symptoms. Conclusions: Adaptive and maladaptive deactivating sadness regulation explain the longitudinal effects of attachment on depressive symptoms. Insecurely attached children and adolescents use maladaptive and adaptive sadness regulation strategies, but differ in their hierarchy of strategy use.
Highlights
Attachment theory offers an integrative framework for explaining the role of emotional caregiving experiences in the development of adjustment and psychological wellbeing [1]
As shown in the field of developmental psychopathology, secure attachment is a main protective factor [9,10,11], whereas insecure attachment is understood as a vulnerability factor, which increases the probability of maladjustment, especially in combination with other risk factors [12,13,14]
Longitudinal studies that examine whether attachment insecurity precedes later symptoms and correlates with current depression showed that the development of depressive symptoms in later adolescence is predicted by insecure attachment during early adolescence [41], and that an insecure attachment representation predicts higher rates and stable patterns of depressive symptoms across adolescence [5]
Summary
Attachment theory offers an integrative framework for explaining the role of emotional caregiving experiences in the development of adjustment and psychological wellbeing [1]. Attachment theory postulates at least three potential mechanisms linking attachment to later wellbeing. As shown in the field of developmental psychopathology, secure attachment is a main protective factor [9,10,11], whereas insecure attachment is understood as a vulnerability factor, which increases the probability of maladjustment, especially in combination with other risk factors [12,13,14]. Early attachment experiences influence the development of internal working models of attachment and the self [1], which control social information processing and emotion regulation and contribute to adjustment or maladjustment [4,15,16]. The current study is aimed at testing this third potential mechanism, by examining the relationship between attachment and depressive symptomatology, mediated by emotion regulation
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