The mediating roles of resilience and anxiety sensitivity on the relationship between perceived parental attitudes and trait anxiety

Objective: To determine the relation between the perceived parental attitudes (over protective, dismissive, emotional warmth) and trait anxiety levels among university students and whether psychological resilience and anxiety sensitivity play mediating roles in this relationship. Method: A total of 385 residents (170 females and 210 males) from Kocaeli and Istanbul between the ages of 18 to 33, studying at government or private universities, were recruited for the purpose of this study. All participants were applied a Sociodemographic and Data Form, the Egna Minnen Betraffande Uppfostran-Short Form (S-EMBU), the Anxiety Sensitivity Index-3, the Resilience Scale for Adults and the Spielberger State and Trait Anxiety Scale. The findings of this study point to a correlation between the perceived attitudes of parents, the trait anxiety levels, the anxiety sensitivity and the psychological resilience. Result: The correlation analysis showed that the over protective and dismissive types of perceived parental attitudes had a significantly positive relationship with trait anxiety, anxiety sensitivity and had a significantly negative corelation with psychological resilience. On the contrary, emotional warmth had a significantly negative correlation with trait anxiety and anxiety sensitivity and had a significantly positive correlation with psychological resilience. The mediator variable analysis showed that psychological resilience fully mediated the relationship between emotional warmth and trait anxiety levels and partially mediated the relationship between over protective attitude and trait anxiety levels. Finally, anxiety sensitivity was found to play a partial mediating role on the relationship between parental attitudes of emotional warmth and trait anxiety levels. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that maladaptive parental attitudes play a role in developing cognitive vulnerability and certain psychopathologies in adults, such as trait anxiety. The contribution of this study to the literature, its limitations and suggestions for similar studies are also discussed. Key Words: Perceived Parental Attitudes, Trait Anxiety, Psychological Resilience, Anxiety Sensitivity