Impact of Early Attachment Security on Academic Achievement Motivation in Young Adults

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship between mother-child and father-child parenting quality on later academic achievement motivation in young adults. It is expected that attachment security will be positively and significantly related to intrinsic academic achievement motivation (and result in higher intrinsic than extrinsic motivation scores), and negatively and significantly related to motivation. Data were collected from two hundred male and female participants from California State University San Bernardino, aged 18- 28. Participants completed the Parental Attachment Questionnaire (PAQ; Kenny, 1987) which assesses maternal and paternal attachment security, the Hazen, Shaver, and Bradshaw (1988) assessment of perceptions of mother’s and father’s early caregiving style, and the Academic Motivation Scale (AMS-C 28; Vallerand et al., 1992) to assess student motivation