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Dysfunctional Parental Care and Emotional Dysregulation: A Pilot Study on the Mediating Role of Attachment Styles and Alexithymia in a Sample of Young Women.

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Title: Dysfunctional Parental Care and Emotional Dysregulation: A Pilot Study on the Mediating Role of Attachment Styles and Alexithymia in a Sample of Young Women.
Authors: Di Pentima, Lorenza (AUTHOR), Toni, Alessandro (AUTHOR)
Source: Journal of Adult Development. Jun2026, Vol. 33 Issue 2, p168-185. 18p.
Subjects: Emotion regulation, Risk assessment, Cross-sectional method, Pearson correlation (Statistics), Data analysis, Alexithymia, Attachment behavior, Pilot projects, Mothers, Parenting, Psychology of women, Descriptive statistics, Emotions, Anxiety, Caregivers, One-way analysis of variance, Statistics, Ability, Fathers, Data analysis software, Confidence intervals, Training, Disease risk factors, Adults
Geographic Terms: Italy
Abstract: Complex traumas within significant relationships, such as maltreatment or neglect, can compromise the development of emotional skills. This is particularly evident in the structure of alexithymic traits and difficulties in regulating internal states which are associated with different psychopathologic disorders. The aim of the present study was to examine the mediating role of attachment between parental styles and the development of emotional skills. Specifically, it was hypothesized that dysfunctional caregiving may be the basis of insecure attachment styles, which expose to the risk for developing alexithymic traits and deficits in emotion regulation skills. The study involved 464 young adults (age range 19–27 years) who were administered the following tests: MOPS (Picardi et al., Journal of Psychopathology 19:54–59, 2013) for measuring parenting styles; ECR (Picardi et al., Italian Journal of Psychopathology 8:282–294, 2002) for measuring attachment styles; TAS-20 (Bressi et al., Journal of Psychosomatic Research 41:551–559, 1996) for alexithymia and DERS (Sighinolfi et al., Psicoterapia Cognitiva e Comportamentale 16:141–170, 2010) for emotional dysregulation. The results highlighted that maternal and paternal indifference, abuse and overcontrol has a direct effect on emotional dysregulation. These parental behaviors revealed also an indirect effect, mediated by attachment anxiety, but not avoidance, on emotional dysregulation. Furthermore, the results showed a significant indirect effect for anxiety and avoidance via alexithymia on emotional dysregulation. The data seem to support the hypothesis regarding the mediating role of attachment and alexithymia between parental styles and emotional dysregulation, as well as the importance of the roles played by both mother and father. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Copyright of Journal of Adult Development is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
Database: Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection
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  Data: Complex traumas within significant relationships, such as maltreatment or neglect, can compromise the development of emotional skills. This is particularly evident in the structure of alexithymic traits and difficulties in regulating internal states which are associated with different psychopathologic disorders. The aim of the present study was to examine the mediating role of attachment between parental styles and the development of emotional skills. Specifically, it was hypothesized that dysfunctional caregiving may be the basis of insecure attachment styles, which expose to the risk for developing alexithymic traits and deficits in emotion regulation skills. The study involved 464 young adults (age range 19–27 years) who were administered the following tests: MOPS (Picardi et al., Journal of Psychopathology 19:54–59, 2013) for measuring parenting styles; ECR (Picardi et al., Italian Journal of Psychopathology 8:282–294, 2002) for measuring attachment styles; TAS-20 (Bressi et al., Journal of Psychosomatic Research 41:551–559, 1996) for alexithymia and DERS (Sighinolfi et al., Psicoterapia Cognitiva e Comportamentale 16:141–170, 2010) for emotional dysregulation. The results highlighted that maternal and paternal indifference, abuse and overcontrol has a direct effect on emotional dysregulation. These parental behaviors revealed also an indirect effect, mediated by attachment anxiety, but not avoidance, on emotional dysregulation. Furthermore, the results showed a significant indirect effect for anxiety and avoidance via alexithymia on emotional dysregulation. The data seem to support the hypothesis regarding the mediating role of attachment and alexithymia between parental styles and emotional dysregulation, as well as the importance of the roles played by both mother and father. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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  Data: <i>Copyright of Journal of Adult Development is the property of Springer Nature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.</i> (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
PLink https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=pbh&AN=193807164
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        Value: 10.1007/s10804-025-09523-z
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      – Code: eng
        Text: English
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        StartPage: 168
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      – SubjectFull: Emotion regulation
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Risk assessment
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Cross-sectional method
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      – SubjectFull: Alexithymia
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      – SubjectFull: Parenting
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      – SubjectFull: Emotions
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      – SubjectFull: Confidence intervals
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      – SubjectFull: Training
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      – SubjectFull: Disease risk factors
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      – TitleFull: Dysfunctional Parental Care and Emotional Dysregulation: A Pilot Study on the Mediating Role of Attachment Styles and Alexithymia in a Sample of Young Women.
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              Text: Jun2026
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