Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-4-2025

Division

School of Education Counseling and Psychology in Education

Keywords

Attachment preference, collectivism, individualism, alloparental care, attachment hierarchies, attachment networks

Disciplines

Psychology

Abstract

We explored the relationship between cultural values, recollected early caregiving experiences and young adult attachment preference. Young adults in Egypt (N = 209) and the United States (N = 554) ranked their current attachment preference, rated their collectivist and individualist beliefs, and recalled the relative contributions of their early caregivers. Egyptian students scored higher than US students on collectivism and recalled more involvement from non-parental caregivers. Most participants reported a preference hierarchy (82% Egypt & 84% US). Surprisingly, individualism was negatively associated with maternal attachment ratings and with having a clear principal attachment relationship, whereas higher collectivism predicted higher maternal attachment. Findings suggest that attachment hierarchies are normative across varying cultural and child-rearing contexts.

Publication Title

Attachment & Human Development

Volume

27

Issue

3

First Page

433

Last Page

455

DOI

10.1080/14616734.2025.2461315

Rights

This is an Accepted Manuscript version of the following article, accepted for publication in Attachment & Human Development. It is deposited under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

Download

Included in

Psychology Commons

Share

COinS