Role of parent-child attachment and cognitive coping strategies in body image dissatisfaction
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Date
01/12/2021Author
Reville, Marie-Claire
Metadata
Abstract
Background/Aims: Body image dissatisfaction has been raised as a major concern of
adolescents today. To alleviate this problem for adolescents, parental relationships have been
highlighted as a target for treatment. Method: This thesis is composed of a systematic
review (Journal Article 1) and an empirical study (Journal Article 2). Journal Article 1: The
systematic review explored evidence on the relationship between parental attachment and
body image dissatisfaction. Results: This review provides mixed findings which indicate
that greater specificity with regards to participant characteristics and features of parent-child
attachment, may reveal the conditions in which there is a relationship between parental
attachment and body image dissatisfaction. Journal Article 2: The empirical study aimed to
do this by exploring the relationship between parental communication and body image
dissatisfaction, through maladaptive cognitive coping strategies. Results: The results show
the data was best accounted by a conditional indirect effect of maternal communication
relating to body image dissatisfaction, through cognitive coping strategies for girls, and for
both girls and boys a conditional indirect effect of paternal communication relating to body
image dissatisfaction through cognitive coping strategies. Although not best accounted for
by the data, exploratory results also evidenced that parental communication relates to
cognitive coping strategies through body image dissatisfaction. Conclusions: These findings
offer preliminary evidence into the importance of body image dissatisfaction in maintaining
cognitive coping difficulties. It also raises the additional benefit of parents and in
combination with intervention studies it suggests that interventions for adolescents may be
able to be delivered through parents, and parent and child gender should be considered to
maximise outcomes. Further research is required to test the replicability of this finding and
explore the developmental process of body image dissatisfaction with regard to parental
communication and maladaptive cognitive coping strategies across time.