The Effect of Attachment Strength on Grief Response in College Students — Presentation Detail — Celebration of Scholars

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Jun Wang
Kim Instenes
John Kirk
Nora Nickels
Andrew Pustina
James Ripley

The Effect of Attachment Strength on Grief Response in College Students

Name: Kendra Dienst
Major: Psychological Science
Hometown: Dubuque, IA
Faculty Sponsor:
Other Sponsors:
Type of research: Senior thesis

Abstract

This thesis study was conducted to investigate the relationship between the strength of attachment to a deceased attachment figure and grief symptom severity. A relationship was also to be observed between the strength of attachment to a deceased attachment figure and depressive symptom severity in a bereaved sample of college students. Participants were recruited via the Carthage SONA Systems online. Participants then, upon attending the timeslot they signed up for online, were given an informed consent form to read through. After participants signed the consent form, they were administered a demographic sheet and three surveys: The Quality of Relationships Inventory (QRI; Pierce, 1994), the Texas Revised Inventory of Grief (TRIG; Faschingbauer, 1981), and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI; Beck, Ward, Mendelson, Mock, & Erbaugh, 1961). The individual QRI depth scores were averaged and used to assess the strength of attachment bereaved individuals feel to their deceased attachment figures, the reported TRIG responses were individually averaged and used to assess grief symptom severity, and the BDI responses were individually summed and used to assess depressive symptom severity. Variables were treated as continuous. Spearman’s rank correlation was calculated to determine a relationship between the strength of attachment and grief symptom severity as well as a relationship between the strength of attachment and depressive symptom intensity. The results indicated that there was a statistically significant positive correlation between the strength of attachment and grief symptom severity (r_s= +0.748, p < 0.01). There was also a positive correlation between the strength of attachment and depressive symptom intensity without statistical significance (r_s= +0.355, p > 0.05). The implications of these findings may help in anticipating individuals' risk for severe grief responses as well as aiding in the development of therapeutic interventions that consider the strength of attachment between bereaved individuals and their deceased attachment figures.

Poster file