Attachment and Social Support in Latinx Young Adults: Investigating the Moderating Role of familismo

Abstract

Social support is essential for maintaining physical and psychological health. Attachment security is important for seeking and using social support, and several studies provide evidence for attachment-based differences in perceptions of social support, with individuals with secure attachment describing greater social support. However, perceived social support may vary depending on culture and cultural values, and, thus, the link between attachment style and social support may be culturally moderated. Therefore, using a sample of 560 Latinx young adults, the current study examined whether the cultural value of familismo moderated the relation between attachment and social support. The results indicate that familismo moderated the relation such that the effect of attachment on social support appears to be larger among those with lower levels of familismo. Exploratory analyses revealed that this pattern also exists in a sample of non-Latinx young adults but only when examining paternal attachment. Further, exploratory analyses also uncovered relations between familismo and attachment with the mental health of Latinx young adults such that familismo moderated the relation between paternal attachment and depression. These findings highlight the role familismo and cultural values may play in the relation between attachment and social support or mental health outcomes.

Measurement invariance of the Inventory of Peer and Parent Attachment among Latinx and non-Latinx college students.

“…These findings provide psychometric support for the studies that have already utilized the IPPA in diverse college student samples and indicate that this measure is adequate for use in studies wishing to compare attachment relationships (mother, father, and peer) among Latinx and non-Latinx respondents. This contribution should be highlighted given emerging research suggesting that attachment acts differently in Latinx samples (Abate et al, Under review)—research that is seriously limited without measurement invariance studies.…”

“…There are good reasons to think that attachment instruments may perform differently across cultural groups. Although attachment security, broadly, emerges as a protective factor among Latinxs just as in other cultural groups (Venta, 2020; Venta et al, 2019), the relation between attachment and other important outcomes (e.g., social support) in Latinxs is moderated by adherence to traditional cultural values (Abate et al, Under review). Attachment in other groups has, likewise, pointed to cross-cultural differences in the measurement of attachment with, for instance, nine attachment styles being detected in an Asian sample (Khodarahimi et al, 2016) as well as moderation of attachment relations by cultural values (Zhu et al, 2016).…”

Measuring media‐related health and mental health information acquisition among Latino adults in the United States

“…Health communication researchers have touched upon this knowledge gap, focusing on family communication around mental health and how Latino culture such as familismo and religiosity shapes community‐level stigma (Abate et al., 2022; Ai et al., 2017; Guntzviller & Wang, 2019; Siegel et al., 2012). Nevertheless, little research explores how Latino communities are exposed to mental health information through media consumption and what kind of information is conveyed in their mass media preferences.…”