The Effect Of Attachment On Subjective Well-being In Older Adults

Subjective Well-Being(SWB)is a comprehensive psychological index to measure the mental health and life quality for the elderly.To do the research about the subjective well-being of the elderly is helpful to improve their mental health,life and life quality.After reading about the research about attachment,we found that the published researches on adult attachment mainly focuses on the young adults,especially college students.Relatively few studies have focused on attachment in older adults.Through the analysis of relevant studies and theories,it is found that parent-child support(PCS)and filial piety expectation(FPE)may serve as potential variables to work on the effect of attachment on the subjective well-being of the elderly.However,there is still a lack of relevant research to prove the hypothesis.In conclusion,this study aimed to examine the internal mechanism about older adults' attachment for their children on the subjective well-being,and to analyze the effect of parent-child support(PCS)and filial piety expectation(FPE)on it,in order to enrich the research about attachment on the subjective well-being of the elderly.According to the previous studies and theories,we manipulated parent-child support(PCS)as a potential mediating variable and filial piety expectation(FPE)as a moderating variable to explore the internal mechanism about older adults' attachment for their children on the subjective well-being of the elderly.432 older adults in Tianjin were chosen for the study.We used the Gneral Stuation Scale,Experiences in Close Rlationship Scale(ECR),Memorial University of Newfoundland Scale of Happiness(MUNSH),the Filial Piety Expectation Scale and the Parent-child Support Scale as the main measures to study.The results suggested that:(1)The older adults attachment for their children,filial piety expectation(FPE),parent-child support(PCS)were positively correlated with subjective well-being.In addition,both older adults' avoidance of attachment and their anxiety of attachment were negatively correlated with their satisfaction with life(r=-.239,p<.01;r=-.239,p<.01),while filial piety expectation(FPE)and parent-child support(PCS)were positively correlated with their satisfaction with life(r=.130,p<.01;r=.180,p<.01).(2)The regression analysis results showed that older adults' avoidance of attachment,anxiety of attachment,filial piety expectation(FPE)and parent-child support(PCS)had significantly predictive effects on the subjective well-being of the elderly,explaining 9.4% of the total variation;(3)Parent-child support(PCS)partially mediated the effect of attachment anxiety,attachment avoidance on subjective well-being of the elderly.(4)The expectation of filial piety played a moderating role in the effect of attachment avoidance on the subjective well-being of the elderly,while the moderating effect was not significant in the effect of attachment avoidance on the subjective well-being of the elderly.Comclusion:The results of this study provided a strong support for the Attachment Theory,suggesting that the attachment of the elderly can affect the subjective well-being of the elderly,the parent-child support and the filial piety expectation play an important role in it respectively.