A longitudinal study in the US found that adolescents with a less secure attachment to their fathers were more likely to have both internalising and externalising mental health symptoms. More severe externalising symptoms were associated with more frequent alcohol use 1-2 years later. Emotional attachment to their mothers was not associated with these symptoms. The research was published in Developmental Science.
Emotional attachment is a deep, enduring connection between people characterized by feelings of affection, security, and a strong desire for closeness. It is a fundamental aspect of human relationships, beginning in early childhood with caregivers and extending to friendships, romantic partnerships, and even pets. Emotional attachment provides a sense of stability and support and helps people cope with stress and overcome life’s challenges. Secure attachments promote healthy development, emotional well-being, and social functioning, while insecure attachments can lead to difficulties in relationships and emotional regulation.
Previous studies have found a link between mental health and emotional attachment. Insecure emotional attachment is thought to lead to both internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Internalizing symptoms are emotional and behavioral problems that are directed inward, such as anxiety, depression, and withdrawal. Externalizing symptoms include behaviors that are directed outward, toward other people and the environment, including aggressive behavior, hyperactivity, and conduct problems.
Adolescence is a key period for the development of both types of mental health problems. For many people, these problems first appear during this time. Study author Claudia Clinchard and her colleagues wanted to find out how the relationship between insecure attachment and mental health develops as children grow up. They were also interested in how substance use fits into the interplay of these factors. They wondered whether attachment insecurity leads directly to substance use (e.g. alcoholism), which in turn worsens mental health symptoms, or whether mental health symptoms lead to substance use.
The study involved 167 adolescents and one of their caregivers from a southeastern state in the United States. The adolescents were 13 to 14 years old at the start of the study and were followed for five years until they were 18 to 20 years old. Forty-seven percent of the participants were girls and 78 percent reported being white. 78 percent of the caregivers who participated were mothers.
Study participants answered questionnaires at five different time points over a five-year period. At the first two time points, participants completed separate assessments of their attachments to their mothers and fathers using the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment. At times three and four, participants completed assessments of their internalizing and externalizing mental health symptoms using the Youth Self-Report. Finally, at the last time point, participants rated how often they drank alcohol.
The results showed that adolescents with a more secure attachment to their mothers also had a more secure attachment to their fathers. Adolescents with a less secure attachment to their fathers tended to show more psychological symptoms, both internalizing and externalizing. Attachment to mothers was not associated with these symptoms. In addition, girls tended to show more pronounced internalizing symptoms.
Alcohol use was associated with externalizing symptoms – adolescents with more externalizing symptoms tended to drink alcohol more frequently. However, aside from the influence of externalizing symptoms, there was no direct association between emotional attachment to either parent and alcohol use. This suggests that insecure attachment to the father likely increases the risk of alcohol use in adolescents by increasing their risk of developing psychological symptoms, particularly externalizing ones.
“Our findings highlight the importance of the adolescent-father relationship in a cascading developmental trajectory, with adolescent-father bonding during middle adolescence playing a critical role in the development of externalizing symptoms in late adolescence and, in turn, predicting subsequent alcohol use during the transition to young adulthood,” the study authors concluded.
“The findings of the current study support the theoretical perspective that emphasizes the importance of social relationship factors in substance use disorders by illustrating that an insecure attachment between adolescents and their father sets the stage for a developmental cascade that leads to more externalizing symptoms and increased alcohol use.”
The study sheds light on the likely impact of child-father attachment, particularly in early adolescence, on mental health symptoms later in life. However, all factors examined were assessed using self-report, which could lead to reporting bias. Studies examining these relationships using multiple-informant data could produce different results.
Authors of the study “Longitudinal links from attachment with mothers and fathers to adolescent substance use: Internalizing and externalizing pathways” are Claudia Clinchard, Kirby Deater-Deckard, Brooks Casas and Jungmeen Kim-Spoon.
