Role Balance and Depression Among College Students: The Moderating Influence of Adult Attachment Orientations

This study examined interrelationships among role balance perceptions, adult attachment orientations, and depression within an ethnically diverse, mixed-gender sample of college students. Adult attachment orientations--and particularly attachment avoidance--significantly interacted with students' role balance levels to predict their depression scores. Implications and recommendations for college counseling centers are also discussed. ********** The multiple and sometimes conflicting role demands and responsibilities of college life can potentially threaten students' efforts to maintain a sense of life balance and contribute to their experience of stress and social disconnection (Rice, Leever, Christopher, & Porter, 2006). Students are likely to experience life imbalance when they perceive that they are not harmoniously invested in or satisfactorily coordinating their activities and responsibilities across such life roles as student, employee, friend, intimate partner, and family member. Because many role demands directly involve or implicate one's relationships with others, it is reasonable to conceptualize students' capacities to balance life roles as a generalized, current status indicator of their success in integrating multiple role demands. In this regard, students' more specific orientations toward managing the intimacy-related demands of close relationships (i.e., their adult attachment orientations) may either mitigate or exacerbate the adverse consequences of life imbalance on well-being by prompting the use of distinct interpersonal strategies for managing the complex life role demands of the college environment. Indeed, a number of studies have investigated attachment processes as related to managing and making decisions about life roles in the context of career development (Blustein, Prezioso, & Schultheiss, 1995). Although the experience of a balanced life structure is generally assumed to be associated with higher levels of well-being, there has been surprisingly little research dedicated to the study of lifestyle balance (Christiansen & Matuska, 2006). However, a large literature across many fields (psychology, sociology, organizational studies) exists regarding related research involving role stress. For example, in a recta-analytic review of almost 300 studies involving role stress, Ortqvist and Wincent (2006), who defined role stress as involving separate constructs of role conflict, role ambiguity, and role overload, identified a number of detrimental consequences of role stress, including emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and fewer personal accomplishments. Many studies have examined the concepts of role conflict and ambiguity as related to job performance (Tubre & Collins, 2000). Additionally, one study investigated contextual factors influencing the anticipated experience of career-marriage conflict specifically among college students (Barnett, Gareis, James, & Steele, 2003). However, the influence of basic interpersonal orientations on the experience of life role balance among college students has been either unexamined or minimally explored. In particular, it remains unclear whether students' adult attachment orientations contribute to the effects of role balance levels on their well-being. To address these important gaps, this study examined the respective contributions of role balance perceptions and adult attachment orientations to a measure of well-being within a large, ethnically diverse sample of college students. More specifically, we examined the independent and interactive contributions of role balance and adult attachment orientations to depressive symptoms. Role Balance Perceptions Marks and MacDermid (1996) defined role balance as "a general cognitive-affective orientation across life roles, an interrole disposition" and as "the tendency to become fully engaged in the performance of every role in one's total role system, to approach every typical role and role partner with an attitude of attentiveness and care" (p. …