Association Between Secure Attachment Style and Subjective Well-being: Examining the sequential mediation effects

Abstract

Attachments are an integral element of the human experience from birth to death. Early experiences with caregiver and adult attachments are crucial for human emotional and cognitive development and it is a strong basis for mental health and psychological adjustment. Despite this, little research on the relationship of these attachments has been undertaken on subjective well-being. This study intended to investigate the relation of secure attachment style with subjective well-being through serial mediation effect of self-esteem and emotional intelligence. Process macro version 3.4 in SPSS 23 and AMOS 21.0 were used to evaluate survey data of 266 respondents. The findings of the study revealed that secure attachment style play a significant role in enhancing the subjective well-being of people and a positive significant relation was found between them. Also, this relationship was mediated by both self-esteem and emotional intelligence which supports the serial mediation model. Hence, the results exhibit that secure attachment style predicts self-esteem and emotional intelligence, which in turn influences the subjective well-being of persons. Furthermore, both direct and indirect effects were statistically significant. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed based on the findings of the study.

Keywords

• attachment styles, emotional intelligence, self-esteem, subjective well-being