Parental attachment and romantic relationships in emerging adults: The role of emotional regulation processes

Abstract

This cross-sectional study involving a sample of Portuguese college students examined whether parental attachment bonds are related to quality of romantic attachment and whether emotional regulation processes mediate these links. One hundred and seventy college undergraduates completed measures of parental attachment bonds, emotional regulation and a measure of romantic attachment at the beginning of their freshman year. Structural Equations Modeling analyses demonstrated that the quality of parental attachment predicted different patterns of emotional regulation, which in turn predicted significant variability in the representations of students' relationships with intimate peers. The implications of our findings on counseling college students in distressed relationships are discussed.

Keywords:

• parental attachment
• romantic relationships
• emotional regulation
• emerging adults
• indirect effects
• mediation

Acknowledgment

This study has been supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT), research grant PTDC/PSI/65416/2006.

We thank Frederick G. Lopez for comments on an earlier version of this article.