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. 2021 Aug 30;11(9):1153.
doi: 10.3390/brainsci11091153.

Effects of Father and Mother Attachment on Depressive Symptoms in Middle Childhood and Adolescence: The Mediating Role of Emotion Regulation

Alexandra Iwanski  1 , Lucie Lichtenstein  1 , Laura E Mühling  1 , Peter Zimmermann  1
Affiliations
Free PMC article

Effects of Father and Mother Attachment on Depressive Symptoms in Middle Childhood and Adolescence: The Mediating Role of Emotion Regulation

Alexandra Iwanski et al. Brain Sci. .
Free PMC article

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.

Keywords: depressive symptoms; emotion regulation; father attachment; mediation; mother attachment.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Effects of attachment patterns on sadness regulation. Means and SE for each regulation style.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Effects of attachment patterns on depressive symptoms. Means and SE.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Effects of number of secure attachments on (a) sadness regulation (T1) and (b) depressive symptoms (T1).Means and SE.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Mediation model of the longitudinal association between attachment security (first coefficient mother attachment security/second coefficient father attachment security) (T1) and later depressive symptoms (T2) mediated by sadness regulation (all path coefficients were standardized). *** p < 0.0001, ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05.
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