Together or apart? Labour migration and early maladaptive schemas of young adults

Abstract

The aim of the present study was to analyze if parents’ labour migration experienced during childhood has long-lasting influence on people’s psychological functioning. It was verified whether family functioning defined as flexibility, cohesion, communication, and maladaptive beliefs was differentiated by the occurrenceof parents’ labuor migration. It was also tested if parents’ labour migration moderated the relationship between family functioning and maladaptive beliefs. The sample comprised 170 young adults (Mage = 21,81; SD = 2,99) including 94 people whose parents had migrated to work abroad, and 76 people whose parents had never left to work abroad. The study used the Polish adaptation of The Young Schema Questionnaire Short Form (YSQ-S3-PL) by Oettingen, Chodkiewicz, Mącik, and Gruszczyńska (2017), and an adaptation of the FACES-IV by Margasiński (2013). The results indicated that in eight of the tested models, the parents’ labour migration moderated the relationship between family functioning and maladaptive beliefs. The greatest susceptibility to the moderating effects of the indicated set of variables was observed in relation to the maladaptive schema of Defectiveness.