The study aims to verify the mediating roles of rejection sensitivity and unconditional self-acceptance in the effects of adult attachment on interpersonal satisfaction.
It intends to verify the mediating roles of rejection sensitivity and unconditi...
The study aims to verify the mediating roles of rejection sensitivity and unconditional self-acceptance in the effects of adult attachment on interpersonal satisfaction.
It intends to verify the mediating roles of rejection sensitivity and unconditional self-acceptance in the effects of adult attachment’s two dimensions (anxiety and avoidance) on interpersonal satisfaction to understand the causes of client’s psychological distress, which are acquired in interpersonal relationships, and to provide foundational data to be used for the concrete intervening methods that can be utilized during actual counseling.
To attain these research goals, the paper formulates the following study questions: 1.) Is the study model of this research, which explains interpersonal satisfaction through anxiety, avoidance, rejection sensitivity, and unconditional self-acceptance and was devised through literature review of adult attachment theory, appropriate for the data? 2.) Do rejection sensitivity and unconditional self-acceptance play significant mediating roles in the relationships between anxiety, which is one of the dimensions of adult attachment and interpersonal satisfaction? 3.) Do rejection sensitivity and unconditional self-acceptance play significant mediating roles in the relationships between avoidance, which is one of the dimensions of adult attachment and interpersonal satisfaction?
To solve the study questions, the paper employs the following study procedures: The subjects of this research are 509 undergraduates taking a 4-year program at different universities located in the country. The article utilized the adult attachment scale, rejection sensitivity scale, unconditional self-acceptance scale, and interpersonal satisfaction scale. Regarding the result analysis, anxiety, avoidance, rejection sensitivity, and unconditional self-acceptance of single dimensions went through exploratory factor analysis using SPSS 18.0, and the item packages were formed by summing up the items according to the factor loading. Also, Amos 18.0 was employed to confirm the study model’s suitability, and the significance of mediating effects was investigated through bootstrapping procedure. Lastly, the significance of mediating paths of each variable (rejection sensitivity and unconditional self-acceptance) was investigated through the Sobel test.
The research analysis led to the following results: first, the paper’s study model was appropriate for the data. Based on forming internal working model toward themselves or others, the level of their rejection sensitivity and unconditional self-acceptance differed. And their level influences interpersonal satisfaction, which is a dependent variable, either positively or negatively. Second, anxiety influences interpersonal satisfaction indirectly through rejection sensitivity and unconditional self-acceptance. Third, avoidance influences interpersonal satisfaction indirectly through rejection sensitivity and unconditional self-acceptance.
This study has examined empirically the effects of adult attachment’s two dimensions (anxiety and avoidance) on interpersonal satisfaction through the data collected. Also, it has proven that rejection sensitivity, which is set as a risk factor, and unconditional self-acceptance, which is set as a protective factor, mediate adult attachment's two dimensions (anxiety and avoidance) and interpersonal satisfaction.
Thus, this study is significant because it has gained a foothold in understanding process of one’s internally variable, which decreases one’s interpersonal satisfaction working at the interpersonal situation.
Similarly, it has exhibited the basis to make intervening methods through unconditional self-acceptance to be utilized therapeutically during counseling.