Leaving home: Attachment, appraisal, and coping among first-year college students

Attachment theorists have proposed that the attachment behavioral system may explain personality functioning across the lifespan whenever there is a threat to one's safety, a threat to the availability of the attachment figure, or a situation of exploration or challenge. One time when the attachment system is likely to be activated is when an adolescent leaves home to begin college.;In the current study, 121 first-year college students completed questionnaires about appraisals of threat, challenge, and relationship threat; quality of attachment; coping strategies; levels of emotional distress and loneliness; and contacts with attachment figures. Participants also completed a measure of private self-consciousness (psc).;The first finding was a significant canonical correlation between loneliness and distress and cognitive appraisals. Increases in threat appraisals were associated with increased distress and loneliness. Increased challenge appraisals were associated with reduced distress and loneliness. Separate multiple regression equations examined the relationships between the set of attachment security, psc, and security x psc with the appraisal variables and with the coping variables. For the women, security was related to increased challenge appraisals and decreased threat appraisals. For women with low and medium levels of psc, security was associated with less support seeking. For the men who were high in psc, security was related to increased challenge appraisals and increased partying. Security was negatively associated with avoidance coping for men and women.;Finally, a mediational analysis was conducted to determine if threat appraisal mediated the relationships between security and psc with loneliness, distress, and avoidance coping. Threat appraisal mediated the effects of psc on distress, loneliness, and avoidance coping. Threat appraisal also mediated the effects of security on loneliness, but not on distress and avoidance coping. The findings from this study partially support the assertion that the attachment behavioral system is active beyond early childhood, and that it operates in similar ways across the lifespan.