The relevance of adult attachment classification to African Americans' relationship quality and subjective well-being
Item
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Title
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The relevance of adult attachment classification to African Americans' relationship quality and subjective well-being
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:3eb204602901:10036
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identifier
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10096
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Creator
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Smith, Vernon E.,
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Contributor
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Anderson J. Franklin
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Date
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2009
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Clinical psychology | Personality psychology | Black studies | African American | Attachment Theory | Black American | Psychological Well-Being | Regression Analysis | Subjective Well-Being
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Abstract
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The purpose of the present dissertation was to explore whether romantic attachment security significantly contributes to the subjective well-being and relationship quality of African Americans. Research questions concerned the strength of relationships between adult attachment style, subjective well-being, and various psychosocial factors. Additional questions were of the relative importance of psychosocial, or bottom-up, variables and intrapsychic, top-down, variables in predicting well-being and relationship adjustment. It was hypothesized that psychosocial variables would predict well-being and relationship adjustment. It also was hypothesized that inclusion of the top-down variable, romantic attachment security, in regression models would increase the significance of the models above the contribution of the psychosocial variables alone. Moreover, it was hypothesized that attachment security would moderate the deleterious effects of social stressors (including economic and racism-related stress and poor relationship quality) on subjective well-being.;Results indicated that psychosocial variables were weakly or moderately correlated with or predictive of well-being and relationship adjustment. However, attachment security was robustly correlated with these outcome variables and generally was uniquely predictive of well-being and relationship adjustment in linear regression models. Results also revealed, however, that attachment security did not moderate the effects of psychosocial stressors on well-being. A discussion of the findings and directions for future research were provided. Additionally, a discussion of key contemporary mental health theories was provided to integrate psychodynamic and psychosocial concepts thought potentially to be beneficial for improving mental health treatment outcomes for African Americans engaged in psychotherapy.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Psychology
