Relations between attachment to mother and father, mentalizing abilities and emotion regulation in adolescents

Abstract

ABSTRACT Emotion regulation abilities play a crucial role in child and adolescent development. Thus, there is a need to investigate correlates and predictors of the emotion regulation abilities in adolescents. Previous studies have shown that attachment security plays an important role in the development of adaptive emotion regulation strategies; however, the mechanisms underlying these relations are not well understood. The aim of the current study was to test the hypothesis that mentalizing abilities mediate the negative relation between attachment security to parents and the limited use of emotion regulation strategies in adolescents. A total of 530 adolescents in the age range of 15–18 years completed the Security Scale, Reflective Functioning Questionnaire and Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale. As expected, attachment security to mother and father was found to negatively relate to the limited use of emotion regulation strategies; however, only attachment to father was a significant predictor of mentalizing abilities in adolescents. Mentalizing abilities were found to mediate the negative relation between attachment security to father and the limited use of emotion regulation strategies. Our results emphasize the importance of further investigation of the role of father–child relationships for the development of mentalizing and emotion regulation abilities in adolescence.