Attachment style, family environment depression and anxiety

Abstract

Attachment styles and their relationship to family environment, anxiety and depression were investigated. A sample consisting of 81 university students provided scores of attachment style (as measured by Adult Attachment Scale), perceived cohesion and control within the family (as measured by Family Environment Questionnaire), anxiety (as measured by Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory) and depression (Beck Depression Inventory). As avoidance and ambivalence scores were very close in a considerable number of cases, these were collapsed into a single category of insecurity. Thus, in the analyses, the attachment quality variable had two levels, secure and insecure. The results indicated significant differences in terms of mean anxiety and depression scores between secure and insecure groups; insecure group scored higher in both variables, as it was hypothesized. In terms of perceived cohesion, a tendency for the secure group to score higher than the insecure group and in terms of control, a tendency to score lower than the insecure group were detected in the hypothesized direction. Male and female participants were not found to differ with respect to any of these variables.