Loading...
Secure Attachment, Parent-offspring Communication, and Perceived Fairness in Young Adults’ Recollections of Parental Differentiation
Zhou, Weimiao
Zhou, Weimiao
Citations
Altmetric:
Abstract
Parental differential treatment (PDT) of siblings has been linked to poor well-being of children and negative relationship experiences in the family. Explicit parent-offspring communication has been suggested to help facilitate children’s understanding of PDT. Nevertheless, few studies have examined parent-offspring communication about PDT and the justification processes of differential treatment. Guided by attachment theory and equity theory, the present study examined different aspects of parent-young-adult child communication about family inequity and the effects of secure attachment and communication on young adult children’ perceptions of fairness in the occurrence of parental differential support. In a sample 168 young adults, results showed that offspring with greater secure attachment tended to be more involved in voicing their thoughts and perceived a greater amount of parent reasoning behaviors and more positive qualities in parent-offspring communication. Among the three aspects of parent-offspring communication about parental differential support, secure attachment was positively associated with perceptions of fairness of parental different support only through the positive quality of communication. Post hoc independent samples t-test further showed that perceptions of fairness did not differ between the communication (n = 168) and non-communication (n = 99) groups. The current study also indicated that communication contextual factors such as the communication initiator, type of inequity, and timing of the conversation affected the level of perceived fairness of parental differential support. These findings suggest that secure attachment plays a critical role in promoting positive parent-offspring interactions, which in turn, fosters offspring’s justification evaluations. In the occurrence of parental differential support, the way how parents and young adult children communicate affects offspring’s perceptions of fairness.
Description
Date
2023-05-31
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Kansas
Collections
Files
Loading...
975874_1.pdf
Adobe PDF, 1.75 MB
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Keywords
Communication, parent-offspring communication, parental differential treatment, perceived fairness, secure attachment, siblings, young adults