Multiple Serial Mediation Modeling of Remembered Parental Acceptance in Childhood Predicts Adults’ Marital Adjustment: The Role of Self-Differentiation, Depression, and Anxiety

Guided by interpersonal acceptance–rejection theory, this study examined whether associations between recollections of parental acceptance in childhood and adults’ marital adjustment were mediated by self-differentiation, depression, and anxiety. A total of 324 married participants from Pakistan (Mean age = 32.99, SD = 8.53, 49.7% men) completed the Adult Parental Acceptance–Rejection Questionnaire, Differentiation of Self Inventory, Dyadic Adjustment Scale, Patient Health Questionnaire-9, and Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7. Sex differences were found in recollections of paternal acceptance, self-differentiation, and anxiety. Recollections of maternal and paternal acceptance in childhood were positively correlated with adults’ self-differentiation and marital adjustment, but negatively correlated with depression and anxiety. Self-differentiation was also positively correlated with marital adjustment, but depression and anxiety were negatively correlated with marital adjustment. Multiple serial mediation analysis revealed that self-differentiation and depression mediated in sequence the relation between recollections of maternal and paternal acceptance in childhood and adults’ marital adjustment. That is, depression uniquely but negatively mediated the relation between recollections of maternal and paternal acceptance and marital adjustment, but self-differentiation uniquely and positively mediated the relation between remembered maternal acceptance and marital adjustment. Results suggest developmental pathways by which maternal and paternal acceptance in childhood may be related to marital adjustment in adulthood.

Duke Scholars

Author Jennifer Lansford Sanford School of Public Policy