LE3 .A278 2018

2018

Symons, Doug

Acadia University

Bachelor of Science

Honours

Psychology (Neuroscience)

Psychology

This study examines the relations of the attachment and caregiving systems within an Attachment Theory framework. While there is evidence that avoidance in parents has a negative impact on various aspects of parenting, a recent study by Symons, Adams, and Smith (2016) found these relations in a parenting simulation task. In the current study, 103 students completed attachment style and parent-child relationship measures before and after they had raised a virtual child from birth to 18 years of age through the program MyVirtualChild©. In addition, caregiver attitude measures of positive feelings, perceived child security, and willingness to serve as an attachment figure were assessed after this task. Correlations and hierarchical regression analysis showed that avoidance was negatively related to all three caregiver attitude measures, but anxiety was unrelated. At Time 1 only, avoidance was negatively related with three subscales from the relationship measure: support, satisfaction, and involvement, but the remaining four subscales were not related. Time 2 parental attitudes showed a different pattern. The Time 2 measure of parental attitudes demonstrated that avoidance was negatively correlated with satisfaction and involvement, but anxiety was also negatively correlated with support and satisfaction. There were significant increases in all seven subscales of the parent-child relationship measure from before and after the task. In sum, the current study systematically replicated the findings from Symons et al. (2016) that avoidance is negatively related to caregiver attitudes which form towards a virtual child, extend them into the domain of parent-child relationships, and suggests the act of raising a virtual child increases positive attitudes towards the relationship.

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https://scholar.acadiau.ca/islandora/object/theses:2671