Peer-reviewed article
The mediation model of social status on the link between parental attachment, aggressive behavior, and psychological well-being: Evidence from two studies in Vietnamese adolescents and young adults.
Thanh-Minh Nguyen, Nghia Duc Tri Nguyen, Anh-Tram Ngoc Vo, Khoi Le, An-Hong Nguyen et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examines how insecure attachment to parents relates to aggressive behavior and psychological well-being in Vietnamese youth, testing whether subjective social status explains these relationships. Researchers surveyed 1,753 adolescents and 601 young adults using questionnaires about attachment styles, social status, aggressive behavior, and well-being. The findings show that anxious attachment increases aggressive behavior in both age groups, while avoidant attachment affects aggression differently depending on age. Social status partially explains these relationships, but more so for adolescents than young adults.
Key points
- Anxious attachment to parents positively relates to overt aggressive behavior in both adolescents and young adults
- Anxious attachment negatively relates to psychological well-being only in adolescents, not young adults
- Avoidant attachment correlates with aggressive behavior differently by age: positively in adolescents, negatively in young adults
- Subjective social status significantly mediates attachment-to-aggression and attachment-to-well-being pathways in adolescents
- The mediation role of social status is weaker in young adults, suggesting developmental differences in how attachment affects outcomes
Limitations
This is a cross-sectional survey study, so it cannot establish causation or direction of effects. The findings are specific to Vietnamese populations and may not generalize to other cultural contexts.
Abstract
Little is known about how insecure attachment affects aggressive behavior and well-being among Vietnamese youth. Using structural equation modeling, we investigate the mediating role of subjective social status (SSS) on the paths from insecure attachment to overt aggressive behavior (OAB) and psychological well-being (PW) in a sample of 1753 Vietnamese adolescents (Mage = 16.136, SD = 0.784) and test whether the results will be replicated in another sample of 601 Vietnamese young adults (Mage = 19.93, SD = 1.35). Participants complete a survey comprising demographic information, attachment styles, SSS, OAB, and PW questionnaires. Our main findings include: (a) anxious attachment positively related to OAB in both samples, (b) anxious attachment was only negatively associated with adolescents' PW, (c) avoidant attachment was positively correlated to OAB in adolescents but negatively correlated in young adults, and (d) avoidant attachment was negatively related to PW in both samples. In addition, (e) in adolescents, the mediation role of SSS was significant in all paths, but (f) SSS only mediated the link from avoidant attachment to PW of young adults. The present study suggests that aggressive behavior might not be associated with social status or attachment in the same way in adolescents compared to young adult Vietnamese samples.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- No intervention was tested; this is an observational study examining relationships between attachment, social status, aggression, and well-being
- Population
- 1,753 Vietnamese adolescents (mean age 16.1 years) and 601 Vietnamese young adults (mean age 19.9 years)
Key finding
Anxious attachment positively related to overt aggressive behavior in both adolescent and young adult samples
Nguyen et al. · PubMed (US National Library of Medicine) · 11 Jul 2024