Students’ Attachment Styles to their Professors: Patterns of Achievement, Curiosity, Exploration, Self-criticism, Self-reassurance, and Autonomy

This study explored whether professors for young adult college students could serve as caring and trustworthy attachment figures who fostered certain mindsets, perceptions of the self, and academic behaviors. A convenience sample of 89 first-year college students in introductory psychology courses completed an online survey. First, the study sought to replicate the established relationships between students’ achievement goal orientations and curiosity, exploration, self-criticism, and self-reassurance. Then, the study analyzed students’ attachment styles to their First-Year Seminar (FYS) professors in relation to achievement goal orientations to see if attachment style could then predict similar patterns of academic behaviors. Contrary to expectations, results suggest that student-professor attachment styles are not derived from student-parent attachment styles. Regarding academic behaviors, students with high avoidant and anxious attachment to their FYS professors perceive less autonomy support. Specifically, students high in avoidant attachment are more likely to self-criticize, while those high in anxious attachment self-reassure. Overall, students are bringing a unique quality to their professor attachments, and those with stronger avoidant and anxious attachments tend to exhibit greater maladaptive academic behaviors. ATTACHMENT IN COLLEGE STUDENTS 4 Students’ Attachment Styles to their Professors: Patterns of Achievement, Curiosity, Exploration, Self-criticism, Self-reassurance, and Autonomy The transition to college represents the departure from childhood and adolescence into young adulthood. First-year college students must learn to navigate this stressful transition, which commonly includes a degree of separation from parents, increased accountability for decisions, and demanding social and academic responsibilities. First-year students may feel overwhelmed by this separation from familiarity and evaluate their abilities to cope by selfcriticizing or self-reassuring. However, the stress that students experience by separating from their parents, may be remedied by forming close bonds with others, such as roommates, classmates, and professors. To cope with the many transitions of beginning college, first-year students may find comfort in the routine of a class environment, such as first-year seminars (FYS) where students enroll in a year-long class with a small group of classmates and professor. Professors are some of the first members that students can relate to in their new academic and social community. Secure student-professor relations are important because students may attach expectations towards the professor that are similar to a caregiver. Such expectations of the professor may include supporting autonomy and facilitating curiosity and exploration. The expectations may also relate to how successful the students perceive the professor as facilitating them. Expectations of autonomy, curiosity, and exploration may extend to color students’ academic achievement. In relation to academic achievement, there is extensive research on outcomes of achievement goal orientations, but more research is needed into the forces driving students to adopt particular achievement goal orientations. Achievement goal orientations are the ways individuals perceive goal attainment in academics. There are three types of achievement goal ATTACHMENT IN COLLEGE STUDENTS 5 orientations—mastery goal orientation, performance-approach goal orientation, or performanceavoidance goal orientation (Elliot & Church, 1997). Different combinations of competence, fear of failure, and achievement motivation underlie the orientations. Elliot and Church (1997) found that a mastery goal orientation related to achievement motivation and high competence expectancies. Students with a mastery goal orientation are more likely to be intrinsically motivated to overcome challenges and hold high self-competence beliefs. They set standards for themselves that allow the mastery of the skill to develop from confidence, interest, and effort. The researchers also found that a performance-approach goal orientation also associated with achievement motivation and high competence expectancies, but also with the fear of failure. Performance-approach oriented students tend to appear successful like those with a mastery goal orientation, due to their achievement strivings and expectations of high competency. Nonetheless, the added fear of failure may deteriorate their successful functioning with prolonged academic stress. Finally, a performance-avoidance goal orientation related to a fear of failure and low competence expectancies (Elliot & Church, 1997). These students may be the most vulnerable, because not only does the fear of failure underlie the orientation, but they also do not see themselves as capable of success, which may thwart their effort. Thus, achievement goal orientation theory may pair well with attachment theory to see if attachment clarifies why students are driven toward particular goal orientations. Prior research links students’ attachments to their parents with the types of achievement goal orientations (Elliot & Reis, 2003). However, there is little research on students’ attachment to their professors. More research on the role of the professor is needed because when students transition to college, the role of parents as primary authority figures minimizes. The professor, ATTACHMENT IN COLLEGE STUDENTS 6 someone who mentors and encourages learning, may then emerge as a potential attachment figure. Additionally, professors’ responsibilities are not just confined to the classroom. Professors may also advise students throughout the school year on academic and non-academic concerns. Some professors, such as FYS professors, may function as more of a mentor than others. Thus, students’ perceptions of professors’ mentoring efforts may also relate to their academic adjustment. Previous research also links students’ achievement goal orientations to certain patterns of curiosity, exploration, self-criticism, and self-reassurance (Kashdan, Gallagher, Winterstein, Silvia, Breen, Terhar, & Steger, 2009; Powers, Koestner, Zuroff, Milyavskaya, & Gorin, 2011). If students’ attachments to their professors correlate with the types of achievement goal orientations, then attachment styles may predict the similar patterns of curiosity, exploration, self-criticism, and self-reassurance. If this proposed model holds, then it may expand to explain students’ perceptions of their professors’ efforts, such as perceived autonomy support in the classroom climate. While the literature reviewed frequently conceptualizes attachment theory as categorical attachment styles, the attachment measure used in the present study requires a shift in thinking towards two quantitative dimensions of attachment style. The measure conceptualizes two dimensions of attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety and allows for the assessment of attachment to figures other than parents, such as professors (Fraley, Heffernan, Vicary, & Brumbaugh, 2011). Therefore, instead of categories of attachment, the following study will explore attachment style in terms of the degrees of avoidant attachment and anxious attachment. Students with higher degrees of avoidant than anxious attachment will be conceptually “avoidantly attached”; those with greater anxious than avoidant attachment will be conceptually ATTACHMENT IN COLLEGE STUDENTS 7 “anxiously attached”, and those with low avoidant and anxious attachment will be conceptually “securely attached”. Four main goals characterized this study. The first sought to replicate prior research that linked achievement goal orientations with curiosity, exploration, self-criticism, and self reassurance. The second goal hoped to associate adult attachment with achievement goal orientations, to see if students’ relationships with their FYS professors contribute to their achievement goal orientations. If the relationships between attachment and achievement goal orientation held, then the third goal involved correlating attachment with curiosity, exploration, self-criticism, and self-reassurance to see if it produced similar patterns. Finally, the fourth goal asserted that if the proposed model aligned with each of the goals, then attachment to one’s FYS professor could also explain qualities of the FYS professor’s teaching style, such as perceived autonomy support. Goal 1: Replication of Achievement Goal Orientations and Curiosity, Exploration, Selfcriticism, and Self-reassurance Achievement Goal Orientation theory primarily roots itself in school settings. Focusing on the years between elementary school and college, its research examines why some individuals are motivated to overcome obstacles while others give up or avoid trying. Elliot and Church (1997) identified a three-factor hierarchical model of achievement goal orientation. Mastery, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goal orientations compose the three types of achievement goal orientations. Kaplan and Maehr (2007) found that adopting different achievement goal orientations related to different amounts of engagement in schoolwork and emotional experiences at school. Achievement goal orientations may help explain why some ATTACHMENT IN COLLEGE STUDENTS 8 first-year students adjust more effectively to their classes, classmates, and professors, than others. In achievement settings, such as college, that are challenging and pose potential threats to the self, both achievement motivation and the fear of failure may strengthen or impede degrees of curiosity, exploration, self-criticism, and self-reassurance. Kashdan, Gallagher, Winterstein, Silvia, Breen, Terhar, and Steger (2009) defined curiosity as the willingness to acknowledge the novel, uncertain, and unpredictable nature of everyday life. They defined exploration as actively seeking opportunities for new information and experiences. Curiou