The effects of perceived childrearing practice, adult attachment style, and endorsed cultural value on self-construal

Abstract

These studies examined the relative contributions of perceived childrearing practices with parents, adult attachment styles, endorsed cultural values to self-construals. The findings were verified by cross-examination in terms of both correlational and experimental designs, concepts being measured by more than one scale and method, two sources of data (self-report and friend-report), and two groups of sample (university students and married adults). Results showed that interdependent self-construal was significantly and positively predicted by endorsed collectivism cultural value but negatively predicted by endorsed individualism cultural value, whereas independent self-construal was unexpectedly positively predicted by endorsed collectivism cultural value. Endorsed collectivism cultural value in turn was significantly and positively predicted by secure attachment style, attachment close, and attachment anxiety, whilst endorsed individualism cultural value was significantly and positively predicted by dismissing attachment style. In addition to endorsed cultural values, independent self-construal was also predicted by secure attachment style whilst interdependent self-construal was predicted by both attachment close and attachment anxiety. The self-construal task showed no relationship between attachment security and the qualitative self-construal. In reference to the mediation function, endorsed collectivism cultural value partially mediated the link between secure attachment style and independent self-construal, and endorsed cultural value completely mediated the link between attachment anxiety and interdependent self-construal and the link between attachment close and interdependent self-construal. Across three studies, independent self-construal and interdependent self-construal were moderately to highly positive correlated, which were supposed to be two orthogonal dimensions in Singelis (1994). Attachment distributions varied in terms of the different attachment scales. Findings are discussed in terms of the complexity of the self-construal concept and the possible association between adult attachment styles and cultural values.