Abstract
This presentation examines the model and underlying theory for my master’s thesis. Freshmen year of college is a time of transition marked by significant social, emotional, and academic stressors. These stressors increase student’s susceptibility to and actual rates of anxiety, depression, substance use, and poor academic achievement. College attrition rates are higher during freshman year than any other, perhaps as high as 20-30%. It is important, therefore, to highlight factors that might significantly impact students’ ability to successfully cope with the demands facing first-year college students. Adult attachment styles are stable personal characteristics that predict a range of outcomes, including adjustment in contexts such as work and college. The presentation discusses inconsistencies in the conceptualization and measurement of attachment styles that limit comparisons across studies and the ability to draw conclusions as to the relations between attachment styles and variables of interest in the proposed research. Theory suggests that one’s perceptions of social support develop, in part, from internal working models of self and others that are the basis for adult attachment styles. Perceived social support, in turn, relates to indices of college mal/adjustment. Theory predicts and research supports that there may be a relationship between adult attachment styles, perceived social support, and college mal/adjustment. The thesis thus explores perceived social support as a mediating variable. That is, perceived social support is predicted to explain, at least in part, the expected relationships between attachment styles and college adjustment. Implications of the predicted relations within the proposed mediational model are discussed.
