Negative Parenting and Adult Romantic Relationship Quality: The Potential Mediating Role of Insecure Attachment

Abstract

Adult romantic relationship quality is an important indicator of psychological adjustment, interpersonal functioning, and subjective well-being. Previous studies have shown that early family experiences are related to romantic relationship outcomes in adulthood. However, how parenting is related to adult romantic relationship quality, and through which psychological mechanisms this relationship may develop, still needs further clarification. Based on contemporary attachment theory and recent empirical studies, this review examines whether insecure attachment may play a potential mediating role between two types of negative parenting—parental psychological control and parental rejection—and adult romantic relationship quality. Two different theoretical pathways are proposed. First, parental psychological control may make love and approval feel conditional, which may increase concerns about rejection, abandonment, and relationship instability and therefore be related to attachment anxiety. Second, parental rejection may reduce trust in close relationships and make individuals more likely to use emotional distance as a way of protecting themselves, which may be related to attachment avoidance. Emotion regulation is also discussed as an additional mechanism to explain the link between insecure attachment and negative patterns of interaction in romantic relationships.