Parental attachment and body image: Gender as a moderator
Major
Neuroscience
Submission Type
Poster
Area of Study or Work
Psychology
Faculty Advisor
Marie Nebel-Schwalm
Location
CNS Atrium
Start Date
4-12-2025 8:30 AM
End Date
4-12-2025 9:30 AM
Abstract
Studies on parental relationships typically focus on children and adolescents rather than young adults, thus research on whether young adults’ relationships with their parents are associated with body image concerns remains limited. Further, whether parental relationship dynamics are similar for sons and daughters is not well understood. Among parents, mothers may have a stronger association with body image concerns than fathers (Al Sabbah et al., 2009; de Vries et al., 2018); however, patterns of attachment with fathers show significant associations, albeit distinct from those with mothers (Szalai et al., 2017). Similarly, findings are mixed regarding child gender with either more robust results reported for sons than daughters (Holsen et al., 2012; Szalai et al., 2017), or for daughters but not for sons (Crespo et al., 2014). The lack of clarity may be due in part to sample characteristics and the variety of ways these constructs are measured, signaling the need for additional research. The present study aims to investigate whether gender of young adults moderates the influence of parental relationship quality on body image dissatisfaction. We predict that a positive relationship with one’s mother will be inversely associated with body image dissatisfaction, and that this association will be larger for daughters than for sons (Vries et al., 2018). It is less clear whether a positive relationship with fathers will predict lower levels of body dissatisfaction, and whether this will impact sons and daughters differently; therefore, no a priori hypotheses were made regarding fathers. Hierarchical linear regression analyses will be conducted to analyze the impact of (1) relationship with mother and (2) relationship with father on body image among young adult sons and daughters.
Parental attachment and body image: Gender as a moderator
CNS Atrium
Studies on parental relationships typically focus on children and adolescents rather than young adults, thus research on whether young adults’ relationships with their parents are associated with body image concerns remains limited. Further, whether parental relationship dynamics are similar for sons and daughters is not well understood. Among parents, mothers may have a stronger association with body image concerns than fathers (Al Sabbah et al., 2009; de Vries et al., 2018); however, patterns of attachment with fathers show significant associations, albeit distinct from those with mothers (Szalai et al., 2017). Similarly, findings are mixed regarding child gender with either more robust results reported for sons than daughters (Holsen et al., 2012; Szalai et al., 2017), or for daughters but not for sons (Crespo et al., 2014). The lack of clarity may be due in part to sample characteristics and the variety of ways these constructs are measured, signaling the need for additional research. The present study aims to investigate whether gender of young adults moderates the influence of parental relationship quality on body image dissatisfaction. We predict that a positive relationship with one’s mother will be inversely associated with body image dissatisfaction, and that this association will be larger for daughters than for sons (Vries et al., 2018). It is less clear whether a positive relationship with fathers will predict lower levels of body dissatisfaction, and whether this will impact sons and daughters differently; therefore, no a priori hypotheses were made regarding fathers. Hierarchical linear regression analyses will be conducted to analyze the impact of (1) relationship with mother and (2) relationship with father on body image among young adult sons and daughters.