Attachment and Family Influence on Adolescence 19
1993). The remainder of the adolescent survey consisted of 138 questions measuring adolescent
perceptions of parental attachment (Inventory of Parental and Peer Attachment (IPPA); Armsden
& Greenberg, 1987), and, for mother and father separately, perceptions of parental bonding (The
Parental Bonding Instrument; Parker et al., 1979) and perceptions of maternal/paternal
relationship (Epstein’s Mother-Father-Peer Scale, 1983).
Composite scores were calculated to measure expectation of conflict – a composite of
items about conflict, trouble, and worry taken from Freedman-Doan scale.
Results
The small number of subjects obtained make significance testing somewhat inaccurate as
an indication of whether theoretically important relationships exist. As a pilot, this study is meant
to provide suggestions for future research. Providing the results that seem interesting though
non-significant adds to this end. Therefore, results are reported even for those findings not
satisfying an alpha of .05.
The hypothesis that level of family conflict would be affected by attachment style of
parents was not supported. Results of a single factor ANOVA of parental attachment style to
family relationship quality (IFR) showed no difference between groups, (F (3,48) = 1.01, p = .40)
Results
for
RQ1 did not suggest a relationship between anxiety and current conflict.
Results of a bi-variate linear regression between anxiety and family conflict did not prove
significant (r = .15, t
(48)
= 1.03, p = .31). However, when a standard multiple regression of
parental anxiety and security was performed to test for significant predictors of expectation of
conflict, results supported the idea that separation anxiety and expectation are associated (R =
.59, F
(2,45) = 11.78, p < .01). The results of the analysis show anxiety is a significant predictor
of the expectation of conflict (
β
= .60, t
(45)
= 4.55, p < .01). This is consistent with the zero-order
Convention