Object of Desire or Object of Distress?: Psychosocial Functioning Among Securely and Insecurely Attached Indian Young Adults

The nature of a child's relationship with his or her parents during the early years has implications for interpersonal functioning later in life. The purpose of the ex post facto investigation, therefore, was to study how early parental attachment affects psychosocial functioning in Indian young adults. The sample consisted of 221 young adults between the ages of 18 and 30 years. Attachment was operationalized as the score on Retrospective Attachment Questionnaire. Psychosocial functioning was assessed using 3 instruments: Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale-Global Rating Method (SCORS-G), Contingencies of Self-Worth Scale, and Horney-Coolidge Tridimensional Inventory. Different dimensions of the instruments-namely, complexity of representations of people; self-worth contingent on academic competence, approval from others, and physical appearance; and tendencies to move away from people and move against people-emerged as significant contributors in differentiating between securely and insecurely attached young adults. Together, the findings suggest that early attachment has implications for later psychosocial functioning; securely attached young adults function better psychosocially when compared with insecurely attached young adults.