Relationship between Adult Attachment and Coping on Early Adults

Who Experience Emotional Abuse

Raudhatul Jannah, Lely Safrina, Marty Mawarpury, Afriani

Department of Psychology, Syiah Kuala University

Keywords: Adult, Attachment, Coping, Emotional Abuse.

Abstract: Emotional abuse is a type of abuse that often occurs but is still little studied. Emotional abuse affects the

type of attachment and coping that is used by individuals to solve and deal with problems. This study aims

to determine the relationship between attachment and coping in adults who experience emotional abuse. The

correlational method which is a quantitative type of research with adult samples aged 18-40 years,

experiencing emotional abuse, domiciled in Banda Aceh, and the incidental sampling sampling technique

(n=77) was used in this study. Attachment was measured using the Relationship Style Questionnaire (RSQ)

and coping was measured using the Brief COPE. Data analysis using The Pearson correlation technique

showed there was a relationship between attachment and coping (r = 0.47, p <0.05) in adults who

experienced emotional abuse. The results showed that the majority of subjects at 76.6% in this study had

insecure attachment and had an adaptive type of coping. On another hand, there are subjects with secure

attachment but had a type of maladaptive coping as much as 44.6%. Furthermore, the results of the study

also discussed the correlation of each type of attachment with coping in details.

1 INTRODUCTION

The Indonesian Child Protection Commission

(KPAI) recorded 1,000 cases child abuse during

2016 (Hendrian, 2016). Based on detailed data on

child protection cluster cases from 2011 to 2016,

there were 84 cases of children victims of physical

abuse such as beatings, 37 cases of emotional abuse

such as threats and intimidation, as well as 120 cases

of child victims of sexual abuse such as rape (KPAI,

2016). Based on three types abuse presented in the

data is known that emotional abuse is the least abuse

occurred according to KPAI.

During the inauguration ceremony, members of

the Commission for Supervision and Protection of

Children Aceh Province (KPPA) in 2017, Zaini

Abdullah, former governor of Aceh, mentioned that

many cases of abuse against children in Aceh

occurred both in home and at school (Safdar,

2017). According to Empowerment Agency data

Acehnese women (BP2A), there are 1,326 cases of

abuse against children in 23 district / city (Yusuf,

2015). In 2017, the Integrated Services Center

Empowerment of Women and Children (P2TP2A)

of Aceh Province, stated the case reaching abuse

against women and children in Aceh until March 8,

2017 704 cases (Wardani, 2017). Based on the data

above, it can be seen that the amount of abuse

against children is high in Aceh.

Life experiences such as abuse in childhood, is

important to determine the pattern of individual

attachment (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007). Riggs and

Kaminski (2010) stated that individuals who

experience emotional abuse have insecure

attachment during adulthood. Mikulincer and Shaver

(2007) said that individuals with insecure

attachments are more often involved in conflicts and

tend to adopt maladaptive coping, so they

experience problems in social interaction as well as

problems in maintaining a balanced relationship

with other people. This tends to reduce the quality of

relationships and cause relationship instability and in

some cases other than that relationships can also

pose significant risks in the form of behavioral

problems, lack of social skills, low self-esteem, and

some emotional disorders that can occur in

childhood, adolescence, or in adulthood (Mikulincer

& Shaver, 2007). Attachment affects individual

perception about stress and how to deal with it (Van

der Klok, 2007).

Research conducted by Riggs and Kaminski

(2010) states that individuals with experiences of

Jannah, R., Safrina, L., Mawarpury, M. and Afriani, .

Relationship between Adult Attachment and Coping on Early Adults Who Experience Emotional Abuse.

DOI: 10.5220/0009444402370242

In Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Psychology (ICPsy 2019), pages 237-242

ISBN: 978-989-758-448-0

237

emotional abuse in childhood can be predicted to

have insecure adult attachments. Experience what

happens repeatedly about insecure attachments will

affect a self-image and a picture of another person

that an individual has so the two dimensions of

attachment are difficult to change (Bowlby, 1973;

Mikulincer & Shaver 2007).

Early adult individuals often experience various

stresses in life, like stress in relationships with

family and friends (Folkman, Lazarus, Pimley, &

Novacek, 1987). Bjorklund and Bee (2009) which

explains that early adulthood is the peak period of

physical development and cognitive abilities as well

as life periods with changes, such as the transition

from students to the world of work. Furthermore,

Berk (2012) adds that early adulthood is an energetic

period filled with important decisions when

compared with the other period in life. Therefore,

adult individuals must choose adaptive coping for

dealing with stress.

The urgency of this study are, the least study

about emotional abuse, the high amount of abuse

case, and the effect of experience emotional abuse

on adult attachment style thus related to coping used.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Attachment

Bartholomew (1990) explains that attachment is an

affective bond which is eternal between certain

individuals. Dimensions of the idea of attachment

according to Bartholomew (1990) there are two,

namely self-image and picture about other

people. There are four attachment styles in adult

attachment theory Bartholomew, namely secure

attachment, preoccupied attachment, fearful

attachment and dismissing attachment

(Bartholomew, 1990).

2.2 Coping

Coping is all cognitive and behavioral efforts to

master, reduce, or tolerate internal and / or external

demands caused by stressful conditions (Folkman &

Lazarus, 1980). There are two types of coping

according to Folkman and Lazarus, namely emotion

focus coping and problem focus coping. Meanwhile,

Carver (1997) who also guided the theories of

Folkman and Lazarus, mention there are 14 types of

coping namely self-distraction, active coping, denial,

substance-use, use of emotional social support, use

of instrumental social support, behavioral

disengagement, venting, positive reframing,

planning, humor, acceptance, religion, and self-

blame.

2.3 Relationship between Attachment

with Coping in Experienced Adults

Emotional Abuse

The initial experience of individual attachment

influences the pattern of attachment in the next

development stage of individual, thus is formed

based on self-image and the description of others as

well experience of attachment to a previous

developmental period (Bowlby, 1973; Mikulincer &

Shaver 2007). Malekpour (2007) stated that

experience of failure in obtaining secure

attachments to the developmental period can cause

the individual to have insecure attachment at a later

stage of development.

Attachment and coping have a relationship

because they both include cognitive interpretation of

stress and decisions about how much they believe

individuals towards themselves and others (Seifge-

Krenke & Beyers, 2005). Seifge-Krenke and Beyers

(2005) mention the theory of attachment is useful for

explaining why individuals have different ways in

deal with the causes of stress and to understand how

this difference developed from childhood to

adulthood. According to Bowlby, attachment is

activated when dealing with stress, so experience

with attachment figure develop mental

representation (internal working models) about

himself and others who influence judgment and

determination stress levels (Seifge-Krenke &

Beyers, 2005).

Seifge-Krenke and Beyers (2005)

explain internal working models will continue into

adulthood thus helping individuals to predict and

manage stress, especially in relationships with other

people. They continue that, this conceptualization

fits the model of Lazarus and Folkman about

coping. According to this model, individual

differences believed to mediate the process of

assessing the causes of stress, which then has an

influence on coping which individuals use to deal

with stress. Attachment can affect stress perception,

during the process primary assessments and in

particular, guide the individual during the secondary

assessment to chose effective coping.

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3 RESEARCH METHOD

This research used quantitative research methods by

type correlational research. The characteristics of the

sample used in this study is individuals aged 18-40

years, experienced emotional abuse, male and

female, and domiciled in Banda Aceh. The sampling

technique in this study was incidental sampling. The

study sample consisted of 77 individuals who meet

the research needs selected from 500 participants.

This study used two adaptation measures and has

been translated into Indonesian. To measure the

attachment variable, this study using a scale from

Griffin and Bartholomew (1994), namely

Relationship Style Questionnaire (RSQ) and coping

variables are measured using Brief COPE from

Carver (1997).

This study uses a non parametric data analysis

method with Pearson correlation techniques because

the data are normally distributed.

4 RESULT

Based on the normality test conducted using

Kolmogorov-Smirnov with respect to both variables,

the results show that the data normally distributed

because the significance (p) is> 0.05. On a scale

Attachment obtained significance value (p) = 0.843

(p <0.05), while on a scale Coping significance

value (p) = 0.376 (p <0.05). Meanwhile, the linearity

test is conducted on both research variables through

ANOVA test for linearity the results show that the

significance value (p) = 0,000. Significance value

(p) = 0,000 (p <0.05) shows that there is a linear

relationship between attachment and coping

variables.

Hypothesis testing in this study uses statistical

analysis with Pearson correlation technique. The

significance value (p) = 0,000 (p

<0.05). Furthermore, there is a correlation between

attachment to secure the coping use emotional

support (r = 0.48, p <0.05), denial (r = 0.25, p

<0.05), use instrumental support (r = 0.23, p

<0.05), positive reframing (r = 0.23, p <0.05) and

planning (r = 0.31, p <0.05) in adults who

experience emotional abuse. Then there is a

relationship between preoccupied attachment and

self coping distraction (r = 0.33, p <0.05), active

coping (r = 0.34, p <0.05), and religion (r = 0.24, p

<0.05). Next, there is a relationship between

attachment dismissing the coping self distraction (r =

0.34 , p <0.05), active coping (r = 0.41, p <0.05),

religion (r = 0.30, p <0.05) , and self blame (r =

0.31, p <0.05). Meanwhile also there is a

relationship between fearful attachment with

coping self distraction (r = 0.35 , p <0.05), active

coping (r = -0.31, p <0.05), use emotional support (r

= -0.24,p <0.05), substance use (r = 0.35 , p

<0.05), behavioral disenggement (r = 0.26,p <0.05),

and self blame (r = 0.29, p <0.05). These results

indicate that there is a relationship between

attachment with coping in adults who experience

emotional abuse. Therefore, the research hypothesis

is accepted.

5 DISCUSSION

This research was conducted to determine the

relationship between attachment with coping in

adults who experience emotional abuse. Results

research shows that there is a relationship between

attachment coping. These results are obtained from

the results of statistical data analysis shows the value

of the correlation coefficient (r) = 0.479 with a

significance value (p) = 0,000 (p> 0.05). The results

of this study are the same as the research found by

Seifge-Krenke and Beyers (2005), Riggs, Cusimano,

and Benson (2011), and Ognibene and Collins

(1998) which state that attachment related to

coping. Ognibene and Collins (1998) say that

Secure attachment has a correlation with the type of

coping use of emotional support and use of

instrumental support. Next the preoccupied

attachment is correlated with use of emotional

support and escape avoidance . As well as the type

of attachment dismissing and fearful correlate

with use of emotional support.

Based on the type of attachment, more subjects

have insecure attachment types, as many as 59

subjects classified as fearful attachment with 27.3%,

preoccupied attachment with 26%, and dismissing

attachment with 23.4%, while another 18 subjects

with 23.4% were classified in the secure category.

Riggs (2010; Riggs and Kaminski, 2010; Riggs,

Cusimano, & Benson, 2011; Gay, Harding, Jackson,

Burns, & Baker, 2013) said that individuals who

experienced emotional abuse in childhood can also

be predicted to have insecure attachment in

adulthood.

Insecure attachment in adulthood occurs because

of an intermediary early maladaptive

schemas (EMS) owned by individuals who

experience emotional abuse so individuals tend to

have a type of attachment insecure (Gay et al, 2013;

Riggs, 2010; Riggs & Kaminski, 2010; Riggs,

Relationship between Adult Attachment and Coping on Early Adults Who Experience Emotional Abuse

239

Cusimano, & Benson, 2011). Early maladaptive

schemas are all patterns thoughts about yourself and

others formed from various events, experiences,

emotions, and thoughts during childhood or

adolescents, but can change or settle along with

individual development (Gay et al, 2013).

Emotional abuse in this study influenced the type

of attachment. Emotional abuse that occurs affects

self-image of an individual and individual

descriptions of other people (Riggs, Cusimano, &

Benson, 2011). Individuals who experience abuse

see themselves as victims, helpless, shameful, and

worthless. Then, individuals find it hard to believe

others because other people are considered to be

untrustworthy, unappreciative, individuals, cruel,

traitors, and others can hurt the individual. Thus,

individuals also assume that no one gives support

when needed (Indrawati & Fauziah, 2012). This is

the general cause that individual who has insecure

attachment also has a maladaptive coping.

Meanwhile, secure adult attachment is positively

associated with the ability to modulate affects thus

correct to choose coping strategies (Craparo,

Magnano, Zapparrata, Gori, Costanzo, Pace, &

Pellerone, 2018)

According to the total number of coping

analyzes, the majority of subjects have active

coping with 15.65% who tend to belong to the

adaptive coping. This is different from the previous

statement from Mikulincer and Shaver (2007; 2012),

Riggs (2010), Riggs and Kaminski (2010), Riggs,

Cusimano, and Benson (2011), and Gay et al (2013)

who said that individuals with insecure attachment

tend to have maladaptive coping. After further

examination, it is known that the individual with

insecure attachment can also have adaptive

coping. Like the results Seifge-Krenke and Beyers

(2005) research which shows that insecure

attachment specifically preoccupied attachment and

dismissing attachment can also have adaptive coping

namely active coping. The preoccupied attachment

also can have high scores on both adaptive and

maladaptive coping, so individuals

with preoccupied attachment have a what called as

ambivalent coping.

The researchers is aware of the limitations in the

implementation process this research. First, the

unavailability of data about how many individuals

who experience emotional abuse. Second, there are

still many individuals who not yet familiar with the

term emotional abuse so most of it individuals

respond not to experience emotional abuse (323

individuals answer not experience emotional

abuse). Third, emotional abuse not specifically

measured using a certain scale.

6 CONCLUSION AND

SUGGESTION

This research was conducted to determine the

relationship between attachment with coping in

adults who experience emotional abuse. Results in

this study shows that there is a relationship between

secure attachment with coping use emotional social

support, denial, use instrumental social

support, positive refreming, and planning in adults

who experience emotional abuse. Then there is a

relationship between preoccupied attachment with

self coping distraction, active coping,

and religion. Next, there is a relationship between

dismissing attachment with self-distraction coping,

active coping, religion, and self-blame. Meanwhile

there is also a relationship between fearful

attachment with self-distraction coping, active

coping, substance use, behavioral disenggement,

and self-blame. Each type of attachment shows a

significant correlation with certain types of

coping. The most significant significant relationship

among the four types of attachment is

secure attachment with positive refreming.

Most subjects have insecure attachment that

is, fearful attachment, preoccupied attachment,

and dismissing attachment, while the rest has

a secure attachment type. This shows that,

individuals with insecure attachments tend to have

maladaptive coping but also can have adaptive

coping, as is the case with individuals classified

as secure attachments tend to have adaptive coping

but can also have maladaptive coping. This can

occur due to individual diversity factors such as

personality, age, gender, early maladaptive

schemas (EMS), differences in the process of

coping, and the environment.

Based on the results of the study, it is expected to

the professional and activist, especially for those

who take part in the protection sector as well

providing interventions for individuals who

experience abuse, so as not ignores the existence of

emotional abuse as a form of abuse that is

separate. It is expected that adults, especially those

in Banda Aceh can improve the approach to the

Almighty and improve acceptance of problems that

occur. There are various ways that are worth a try to

solve the problem, so that the problem experienced

can be solved effectively and efficiently. To further

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researchers who are interested in conduct research

on adult attachment or coping can use other

variables too, like depression, religiosity, prosocial,

and others. Future researchers can also conduct

research on individual coping flexibility or can

change adult samples whose age is more specific

because of each age in development have different

types of problems, and use qualitative research

methods for obtaining richer data and deep.

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