Childhood maltreatment and dysfunctional parenting style of mothers: The mediating role of insecure adult attachment

• Main Author: Cleto, Alyssa Patricia R.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2021
• Subjects: Child abuse; Attachment behavior; Parenting; Clinical Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etdm_psych/21; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1020&context=etdm_psych
• Institution: De La Salle University

Experience of abuse and neglect has been found to deleteriously impact one’s parenting behaviors and practices. However, prior research focused on specific dimensions of parenting failing to evaluate the global parenting styles adopted by maltreatment survivors. Moreover, knowledge on the possible intervening mechanisms that link these behaviors remain scarce. With this, the current study aimed to examine the predictive role of multi-type childhood maltreatment experience on later dysfunctional parenting style and proposed that this association is mediated by insecure adult attachment styles. A total of 306 samples of Filipino mothers participated in the study and a non-experimental, retrospective, explanatory research study was employed. Findings from hierarchical regression analysis support that multi-type childhood maltreatment experience significantly predict greater use of dysfunctional parenting style. Between the proposed insecure adult attachment styles, only the adult attachment avoidance showed significant predictive association with dysfunctional parenting style. Mediation analysis revealed that adult attachment avoidance significantly mediated the relationship between multi-type childhood maltreatment and dysfunctional parenting style, after controlling for family income level. Adult attachment anxiety did not show significant mediational effect. Results of the current study suggest that mothers who are exposed to childhood abuse and neglect are at increased risk of developing adult attachment avoidance, which in turn poses them to greater use of dysfunctional parenting style. Implications of these findings are highlighted and recommendations for future studies are discussed. Keywords: Childhood maltreatment, adult attachment style, parenting style