Relationship between Parenting Styles and Identity Foreclosure among Secondary and Preparatory School Students: Mediating Role of Parental Attachment

The purpose of this research was to examine the mediating role of parental attachment in the relationship between parenting styles and adolescents’ identity foreclosure. To meet this objective, 375 adolescent students were drawn from secondary and preparatory schools in Debre Markos town using proportionate stratified random sampling technique considering schools, students’ sex and grade levels as strata. With this objective, the study was employed correlational design. Adapted self-report questionnaires for parenting styles, parental attachment and identity foreclosure were used to collect the data from respondents. Path analysis via linear regression was employed to determine the path coefficients of the variables under study. Then, based on Baron and Kenney’s requirements of single mediation, simple and multiple linear regressions were made to determine the value of the four paths. Furthermore, the existence of significant mediation via parental attachment was tested using Sobel’s test for each path diagrams. Results revealed that parental attachment positively and partially mediated in the relationship between authoritative parenting style and identity foreclosure. Nevertheless, authoritarian parenting style did not have an indirect effect on identity foreclosure via parental attachment but significant and positive direct effect on identity foreclosure. Future research is recommended to extend the present study using other participants in another place.