Parental Attachment, Cognitive Working Models, and Depression Among African American College Students

In an attempt to understand the cognitive mechanisms by which parental attachments predict depression among African American college students, the authors examined a mediational path model containing parental attachment, cognitive working models, and depression. The model demonstrated a close fit to the data, and several significant paths emerged. The authors provide recommendations for counselors practicing in college counseling centers and suggest directions for future research. Keywords: attachment, working models, depression, African Americans, college students ********** Counselors strive to promote emotional well-being by equipping clients with the tools necessary to mitigate daily life stressors (Gelso & Fretz, 1992). To do this, counselors must have an understanding of factors that buffer emotional distress (e.g., depression) to develop interventions that will foster emotional well-being. Attachment theory is a commonly used theoretical framework that researchers and clinicians have used to explain emotional well-being among clients. According to attachment theory, parental attachment relationships are enduring, affective bonds between individuals and their primary caregiver formed during childhood (Bowlby, 1969, 1988; Bretherton, 1992). Parental attachments have been important to counselors for years because of their known associations with psychological well-being, emotional well-being, interpersonal relationships, and social adjustment (Ferry, Tobin, & Beesley, 2004; Lapsley & Edgerton, 2002; Love, 2008; McCarthy, Moiler, & Fouladi, 2001; Moiler, Fouladi, McCarthy, & Hatch, 2003). The College Experience College students are susceptible to depression because of the many developmental challenges they encounter (Berk, 2006; D'Augelli & Hershberger, 1993; Kalsner & Pistole, 2003). In addition to the pressure to succeed academically, individuals' college years represent a period of transition during which late adolescents grow into independent, functioning people. Students encounter a new situation in which they must leave their primary source of social support, develop new attachments, and adjust to their newfound independence, all while completing their academic requirements. This process may be particularly difficult for African American students, especially those attending predominantly White institutions, because they tend to experience added difficulties that their Caucasian peers do not encounter. Some of these difficulties may include discrimination, alienation, and cultural discontinuity, all of which may make African American students more susceptible to depression than is true for their Caucasian peers (Allen, 1985; Kalsner & Pistole, 2003). However, parental attachments may serve as a valuable buffer against students' depression; therefore, understanding how they influence emotional outcomes is important. Attachment Relationships, Cognitive Working Models, and Depression Attachment relationships are theorized to influence depression through the development of internalized, cognitive working models that children develop of themselves and others in response to behavioral interactions that they experience with their primary caregiver, namely, the caregiver's physical accessibility and responsiveness as well as the caregiver's emotional responsiveness (Bowlby, 1969). Individuals who experience their caregivers as emotionally warm, consistently responsive, and encouraging of autonomy develop a positive working model of the self because they view themselves as worthy of love; likewise, they develop a positive working model of others because they view others as trustworthy and reliable. The combination of these two behavioral patterns is indicative of attachment security. Conversely, individuals whose primary caregivers are emotionally cold or distant, are physically unresponsive, and encourage overdependence develop a negative view of themselves because they think that they are not worthy of love, and they develop a negative view of others, who they deem as untrustworthy and unreliable. …