Attachment and depression: The mediating roles of personal life projects and emotional intelligence
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Attachment and depression: The mediating roles of personal life projects and emotional intelligence Başak İnce 1
&
Ömer Faruk Şimsek 1 & Levent Özbek 2
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract Attachment patterns between parent and child have been shown to make a great contribution to individuals’ well-being including positive mood and depressive symptoms. Even though the relationship between difficulties in parental attachment and depression has been well demonstrated, there is still a need for understanding the mediating factors of this relationship. In this regard, the aim of the present study was to examine the mediating effects of personal life projects as a narrative construct, and emotional intelligence on the relationship between attachment to parents and depression using structural equation modeling (SEM). For this purpose, 512 high school students (218 female, 294 male) with the mean age of 15.71 (SD = .97) were recruited. Participants were asked to fill out a questionnaire package including measurements of parental attachment, personal life projects, emotional intelligence, and depressive symptoms. Findings provided empirical support that personal life projects and emotional intelligence together fully mediate the relationship between attachment to parents and depression. Results further showed that attachment to parents contributes to personal life projects both directly and also through emotional intelligence. The implications of the findings for clinical work and the enhancement of well-being are discussed and directions for future research are outlined. Keywords Attachment . Depression . Ontological well-being . Personal life projects . Emotional intelligence . Adolescence
Introduction As one of the most important cornerstones of human life, the attachment is known to be an affectionate and intimate relationship between two individuals (Ainsworth et al. 1978). Bowlby (1980) suggested that human beings are born with a tendency to develop an attachment with caregivers and they are likely to adjust their thinking and behaviour patterns in order to maintain their relationship with those caregivers. World Health Organization (1999) has stated that attachment styles have great importance for both close relationships in adulthood and adults’ well-being including positive mood, quality of life and interest in things. A recent study has also This study was presented at the 15th European Congress of Psychology 2017. * Başak İnce [email protected] 1
Department of Psychology, Istanbul Arel University, Türkoba Mahallesi Erguvan Sokak No:26 / K 34537 Tepekent – Büyükçekmece, İstanbul, Turkey
2
Department of Statistics, Ankara University, Ankara, Turkey
indicated that there is a correlation between autonomous and affectionate parental rearing styles and high levels of happiness in children (Lim et al. 2015). Problems in parental attachment are known to cause psychological problems among children and adolescents. Evidence has shown that parental unavailability (e.g.,
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