Published Paper Details:

Parenting style plays a crucial role in shaping young adults' emotional and behavioural development. It affects both how attachment patterns form and how aggression is expressed. This study examined how parenting styles (authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive), attachment styles (secure, avoidant, dismissive, anxious, and ambivalent), and aggression (physical, verbal, anger, and hostility) relate among young adult males and females aged 18-25. Data were collected from a sample of 100 participants. Tools were used: the Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ), the Attachment Style Questionnaire (APQ-SF), and the Buss-Perry Aggression Questionnaire (BPAQ). Results from Pearson correlation analysis indicated several statistically significant positive relationships (p < .001). Authoritarian parenting was moderately correlated with anxious attachment (r = .451), while ambivalent attachment was positively associated with avoidant (r = .491), dismissive attachment(r = .400), and physical aggression was both moderately correlated with dismissive(r=.347) and ambivalent attachment(r = .403). Verbal aggression correlated with both dismissive attachment (r = .343) and physical aggression (r = .689) whereas, anger moderately correlated with avoidant(r=.337) and strongly correlated with physical aggression(r=0.577). Moreover, hostility showed strong associations with physical aggression (r = .760) and anger (r = .641), as well as moderate correlations with authoritarian parenting (r = .328), avoidant (r = .352), and ambivalent attachment (r = .451) and lastly, dismissive attachment is strongly correlated with avoidant attachment(r=0.534). Overall, the results suggest that insecure attachment patterns and authoritarian parenting behaviours are closely tied to increased aggression and hostility. Encouraging supportive parenting and secure attachment may help reduce aggression among young adults.