Maternal and Paternal Attachment Patterns in Pakistani Internet Users During COVID-19

Abstract

With ever-growing Internet penetration and increasing numbers of social media applications, the apprehensions around problematic use of the Internet among young adults are rising. Among the determinants of problematic Internet use (PIU), parental attachment toward both fathers and mothers is considered significant. However, research in Pakistan, despite growing numbers of Internet users, is either insufficient or methodologically challenged. This study aims to address these gaps by using improved methodology to study PIU and parental attachment among young adults while also accounting for the impact of psychological distress due to COVID-19. Using a correlational quantitative research design, we recruited a total of 142 young adults (>18 years) residing in Pakistan, with no previous psychiatric history, who were asked to complete the Generalized Problematic Internet Use Scale-2, Experiences in Closed Relationships–Relationships Structures scale, and Kessler Psychological Distress Scale-10 (K10). Results showed that psychological distress had a significant positive association with PIU and paternal attachment had a significant positive association with PIU. Regression analysis showed that only duration of Internet use and psychological distress were significant predictors in the model and that parental attachment was nonsignificant. Furthermore, securely attached individuals reported significantly less psychological distress than those with fearful-avoidant and dismissive attachment styles. Therefore, our results show that general parental attachments are associated with psychological distress and psychological distress is associated with PIU. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Introduction

One could argue that the Internet is currently one of the most powerful tools; however, conduct problems in childhood¹; personal, social, and behavioral problems in adults²; and stressful negative psychological experiences and depressive symptoms among Facebook users^3,4 are some of the reported negative effects of problematic Internet use (PIU). Although we are aware of the various terms and conceptual nuances in the literature for unhealthy Internet use (i.e., Internet Addiction⁵ and Compulsive Internet Use⁶), we will use the term “problematic” to denote Internet use in our article.

PIU refers to the negative professional and personal outcomes for the user, due to the cognitions and behaviors associated with Internet use.⁷ However, from an attachment theory perspective, what psychological factors motivate individuals toward PIU?

One way of looking at PIU is in terms of an object and the user developing a relationship with this object, reflecting an internal working model of attachment that develops early in childhood and transmits into adulthood. Drawing on Winnicottian (2019)⁸ and Klein's (1959)⁹ object relations theory, it is argued that the Internet provides a space outside the individual but not the external world, where meanings are created and individual's personal factors are brought to the surface.

Where attachment theorists, for example, Bowlby and Ainsworth (2013) place importance on the primary caregiver as the first working model of how individuals relate to others and the world around them¹⁰; we assume that the isolation inevitable with COVID-19 lockdown in Pakistan, an individual's attachment pattern would be brought to the surface. The psychological void between oneself and the other are heightened during social isolation; we could assume that a person whose attachment pattern is predominantly “anxious” compared with a more secure pattern might use the Internet as a surrogate attachment object, to fill this void and reduce anxiety. Anxious or avoidant attachment patterns stem from a spectrum of inconsistent behaviors in caregiving and responsiveness, contributing to insecure feelings. Emerging from these two dimensions of avoidance and anxiety,¹¹ the main attachment patterns are preoccupied, fearful-avoidant, and dismissive-avoidant.¹²

Avoidance is the extent to which an attachment figure is perceived as unavailable and nonresponsive when needed. Anxiety is the extent to which the attachment figure is perceived as distrustful in responding to emotional needs.¹³ Although attachment is seen as stable across all relationships, evidence has shown that working models of attachment might vary according to the attachment figure, for example, paternal and maternal attachments differ.¹⁴ Using an object relations lens, we assume that an individual's way of relating to others, including material objects in our physical world, such as the Internet, is a combination of internal psychic experience and the external, objective reality of the caregiver's behaviors. Siblings who are raised by the same parents, for example, can have a different attachment pattern from each other.¹⁵

Research has studied attachment and PIU either as a global measure, that is, parental attachment, failing to account for paternal and maternal factors separately or the quality of attachment is poorly measured. This is the case for most research conducted in Pakistan as no association is found between the variables,¹⁶ whereas others have found an association,¹⁷ and none have evaluated attachment for both parental figures separately, to our knowledge.

Jia and Jia¹⁴ explored attachment anxiety and avoidance for both mothers and fathers in adolescents and found that maternal and paternal attachment anxiety had a positive correlation with PIU. These contradictory findings could also be due to the use of instruments, such as the Internet Addiction Test, that have shown low reliability and validity¹⁸ and primarily rely on potentially overpathologizing criteria,¹⁹ lacking theoretical and conceptual specificity.⁷ To reconcile these existing methodological challenges, we use Caplan's scale that carries stronger empirical support with good psychometric properties.²⁰

The possibility of the prevalence of symptoms of depression, anxiety, and increased stress among the general population during the COVID-19 outbreak²¹ was imperative to examine, as psychological distress could also be influenced by attachment patterns, with anxiously attached individuals possibly overestimating their distress and avoidantly attached people under-reporting it.²² We, therefore, predicted the following:

H1: Insecure attachment style will be positively associated with PIU.

H1.1: Insecure paternal attachment will be positively associated with PIU.

H1.2: Insecure maternal attachment will be positively associated with PIU.

H2: Psychological distress during COVID-19 lockdown will be positively associated with PIU.

H3: Individuals with secure parental attachment will score significantly lower on psychological distress than individuals with insecure parental attachment (dismissive, preoccupied, and fearful-avoidant).

Methods

Participants and recruitment

One hundred forty-two participants out of 200 were selected for the study. Participants were removed based on the exclusion criteria; n = 54 (27 percent) with a self-reported history of depression and anxiety, and n = 4 (2 percent) who were under 18. Demographics of the participants is displayed in Table 1.

Table 1.

The Frequency and Percentage on the Demographic Variables of the Total Study Sample (N = 142)

Variables	Categories	N	Percentage
Gender
	Females	109	76.8
	Males	33	23.2
Age
	18–22	62	43.7
	23–27	72	50.8
	>27	8	5.6
Employment status
	Employed	34	23.9
	Unemployed	108	76.1
Ethnicity
	Punjab	62	43.7
	Sindh	7	4.9
	Baluchistan	2	1.4
	KPK	14	9.9
	Kashmir	9	6.3
	Gilgit-Baltistan	29	20.4
	Other	19	13.4
Place of frequent Internet use
	At home	141	99.3
	At workplace	1	0.7
Time spent on the Internet weekly
	0–7 hours	52	36.6
	8–35 hours	67	47.2
	≥36 hours	23	16.2
Purpose of frequent Internet use
	Information searching	28	19.7
	Socializing (Facebook, Instagram, etc.)	94	66.2
	Studying	14	9.9
	Online gaming	5	3.5
	Online shopping	1	0.7

KPK, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The frequency of participants (overall, males and females) assigned to one of four attachment patterns with mother and father as instructed in Fraley et al¹³ is displayed in Table 2.

Table 2.

Frequency of Attachment Styles: Secure, Preoccupied, Fearful-Avoidant, and Dismissive for Overall Sample (N = 140), Males (n = 32), and Females (108) with Mother and Father Separately

	Attachment styles
	Secure		Preoccupied		Fearful-avoidant		Dismissive
	N	Percentage	N	Percentage	N	Percentage	N	Percentage
Mother
Overall sample (n = 140)	40	28.6	26	18.6	46	32.9	28	20
Males (n = 32)	10	31.3	6	18.8	9	28.1	7	21.9
Females (n = 108)	30	27.8	20	18.5	37	34.3	21	19.4
Father
Overall sample (n = 140)	40	28.6	22	15.7	48	34.3	30	21.4
Males (n = 32)	7	21.9	6	18.8	11	34.4	8	25
Females (n = 108)	33	30.6	16	14.8	37	34.3	22	20.4

Data were collected online between May and August 2020, when all educational institutions were closed due to the COVID-19 lockdown.

Using nonprobability convenience sampling, questionnaires were distributed among peers and social groups and by extension to their contacts. More females than males responded to the online survey (leading to an imbalanced gender sample) perhaps due to the observation that women tend to participate more in surveys compared with their counterparts.^23,24 Most participants belonged to social sciences and humanities, which are overrepresented by women in Pakistan.²⁵

Measures

The data were screened for data entry errors with no missing values reported. Normality assumptions were tested through K–S values and so on, and significant outliers were removed before further analysis. Duration of Internet use was assessed categorically as reported in previous studies^26,27 suggesting that those using the Internet weekly for >36 hours have a greater tendency to engage in PIU.²⁸

Parental attachment was measured using the 9-item scale Experiences in Close Relationships–Relationship Structures developed by Fraley, Waller and Brennan (2000). It has satisfactory psychometric properties¹⁶ and displayed Cronbach's alpha values ranging from 0.68 to 0.88. Each item was used twice to measure paternal and maternal attachment for every participant. The order of the scales and items were not randomized; therefore, there may have been uncontrolled ordering effects.

The two-factor model of attachment displayed acceptable fit using confirmatory factor analysis in Amos 26 after model re-specification (Table 3) in the current sample; similarly confirmed in Turkish²⁹ and Portuguese samples.³⁰ The re-specification was done by allowing the measurement errors of the pairs of items belonging to the same dimension with similar content to correlate. Owing to item content overlap, this is justified.³¹ (Maternal attachment avoidance: mean [M] = 2.74, standard deviation [SD] = 1.08, α = 0.77; paternal attachment avoidance: M = 3.36, SD = 1.30, α = 0.85; maternal attachment anxiety: M = 1.68, SD = 1.01, α = 0.68; and paternal attachment anxiety: M = 1.77, SD = 1.20, α = 0.84.).

Table 3.

Goodness-of-Fit Indices for Experiences in Close Relationships–Relationship Structures Two-Factor Model (Avoidance and Anxiety) with Mother and Father

Model	χ²	df	χ²/df	CFI	AGFI	RMSEA
ECR-RS (mother)
Original model	62.96	26	2.42	0.89	0.84	0.10
Respecified model	45.92	24	1.91	0.94	0.88	0.077
ECR-RS (father)
Original model	103.32	26	3.97	0.87	0.75	0.15
Respecified model	43.61	23	1.89	0.97	0.88	0.080

Note: n = 140.

AGFI, adjusted goodness of fit; CFI, comparative fit indices; df, degrees of freedom; ECR-RS, Experiences in Close Relationships–Relationship Structures; RMSEA, root mean square error approximation.

PIU was measured using the 15-item scale; Generalized Problematic Internet Use Scale-2 developed and revised by Caplan³² with responses ranging from 1 (“definitely disagree”) to 7 (“definitely agree”). The overall reliability of the scale was a = 0.91³² (α = 0.87, M = 55.08, SD = 15.21).

To measure psychological distress, Kessler's 10-item scale was used demonstrating excellent internal consistency reliability a = 0.92.³³ It assesses an individual's emotional state within the past 4 weeks on five levels of responses ranging from 1 “none of the time” to 5 “all of the time” (α = 0.88, M = 22.58, SD = 6.84).

Ethics

The authors adhered to the American Psychological Association³⁴ code of ethical conduct and the Declaration of Helsinki. Participants, aged 18 or older, who gave informed consent were sent the questionnaires, followed by debriefing. Appropriate referral options were provided if any participant wished to seek help for psychological/emotional distress.

Results

Correlational analysis of variables (Table 4) showed that attachment anxiety with fathers only (not mothers) and psychological distress were significant predictors of PIU. No significant relationship was found between attachment avoidance of both mother and father and PIU.

Table 4.

Pearson Correlation Analysis of Parental Attachment, Psychological Distress, and Generalized Problematic Internet Use (N = 142)

		1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1	K10	1
2	GPIU	0.418^**	1
3	Av (m)	0.303^**	0.088	1
4	Av (f)	0.355^**	0.117	0.649^**	1
5	An (m)	0.067	0.127	0.399^**	0.373^**	1
6	An (f)	0.212^*	0.190^*	0.336^**	0.549^**	0.606^**	1
7	Av (T)	0.365^**	0.114	0.890^**	0.925^*	0.424^**	0.498^**	1
8	An (T)	0.162	0.180^*	0.407^**	0.523^**	0.876^**	0.914^**	0.517^**	1

p ≤ 0.01; ^*p ≤ 0.05.

An (f), anxiety (father); An (m), anxiety (mother); An (T), anxiety (total); Av (f), avoidance (father); Av (m), avoidance (mother); Av (T), avoidance total; GPIU, Generalized Problematic Internet Use; K10, Kessler Psychological Distress Scale 10.

Multiple hierarchical regression was applied (Table 5) to investigate if paternal attachment anxiety and psychological distress predicted PIU, while controlling for statistically significant Internet-related variables (duration of weekly Internet use).

Table 5.

Relationship between Internet-Related Factors, Attachment Factors, Psychological Distress, and Generalized Problematic Internet Use (N = 140)

Predictors	Overall sample (140)
Predictors	B	SE B	Β	R ²	Δ R²
Step 1: Duration of weekly Internet use				0.094	0.094^**
8–35 hours	5.24	2.69	0.17
≥36 hours	13.79^***	3.69	0.33^***
Step 2: Attachment				0.125	0.031^***
8–35 hours	5.81^*	2.73	0.19^*
≥36 hours	13.39^***	3.71	0.32^***
Av (m)	−0.59	1.57	−0.00
Av (f)	−0.18	1.42	−0.02
An (m)	0.32	1.66	0.02
An (f)	2.40	1.62	0.17
Step 3: Psychological distress				0.241	0.116^***
8–35 hours	4.67	2.57	0.16
≥36 hours	10.61^*	3.52	0.26^*
Av (m)	−0.84	1.48	−0.06
Av (f)	−1.21	1.34	−0.10
An (m)	1.23	1.57	0.08
An (f)	1.69	1.52	0.12
K10	0.84^***	0.19	0.38^***

p < 0.05; ^**p < 0.01; ^***p < 0.001.

An (f), anxious attachment (father); B, unstandardized beta; K10, Kessler Psychological Distress; SE B, standard error for unstandardized beta; t, t test value; β, standardized beta.

The duration of Internet use was statistically significant in predicting PIU with 9.4 percent (R² = 0.094) variance in PIU. After adding the attachment variables, the model was significant explaining 12.5 percent of variance in PIU F(6, 133) = 3.16, p < 0.01. However, none of the attachment variables appeared to be statistically significant predictors when controlling for Internet-related variables.

The overall model (including psychological distress) was statistically significant, explaining 24.1 percent (R² = 0.241) of the variance in PIU with F(7, 132) = 5.98, p < 0.001. Thus, psychological distress and duration of Internet use (>36 hours) emerged as the only statistically significant predictors in the overall model.

Table 6 shows a significant difference between the variances of means of the different groups of attachment as determined by one-way analysis of variance F(3,136) = 4.61, p = 0.004. Post hoc comparisons (Bonferroni test) indicated that the mean score for the secure group (M = 19.67, SD = 5.95) was significantly different than the fearful-avoidant group (M = 24.07, SD = 7.38) and the dismissive group (M = 25.00, SD = 7.46). However, the preoccupied group (M = 22.00, SD = 4.81) did not significantly differ from the other groups. Collectively, these results suggest that securely attached individuals tend to report less psychological distress.

Table 6.

One-Way Analysis of Variance of Psychological Distress by Attachment Styles

Source	df	SS	MS	F	p
Between groups	3	587.18	195.73	4.61	0.004
Within groups	136	5773.47	42.45
Total	139	6360.65

MS, mean squares; SS, sum of squares.

Discussion

Although recruitment during the lockdown precludes any firm arguments to be drawn from our findings, we show preliminary pointers toward the possibility that psychological distress contributes to PIU and parental attachment does not.

Our hypotheses: H1 (H1.1 and H1.2) was not supported as no association was established between parental attachment of both mothers and fathers with PIU. Unlike previous studies measuring attachment avoidance as a global construct (not specific to any relationship) linking it with PIU,^35,36 our study focused on differentiating between mother and father attachment patterns. Only 20 percent of the participants reported a dismissing avoidant style, which could have contributed to the absence of association between the two variables. Attachment avoidance is associated with downplaying the importance of close relationships and avoiding emotional closeness³⁷; therefore, it is less likely to contribute to PIU.¹⁴

Contrary to our findings, previous literature supports an association between attachment anxiety and PIU.^14,38,39 People with anxious attachment (preoccupied and fearful) are usually dependent on others, showing excessive efforts for acceptance/approval and might feel a greater need for interaction.⁴⁰ Thus, using online communication to fulfill these psychological/emotional needs places young adults with anxious attachment at a higher risk than others for PIU.⁴¹ One explanation for our findings could be due to some external factors unaccounted for in our study or the gender imbalance in our sample as additional analyses (Supplementary Table S1) point toward a difference between Pakistani sons' and daughters' attachment pattern with each parent in the findings.

Although differential parental attachment did not show any differences in our statistical analysis (H1.1 and H1.2), we wondered whether there would be any descriptive differences between maternal and paternal attachment styles among males and females (Table 2). Although these preliminary findings warrant further research, it interestingly shows that feelings of a secure attachment are higher with the opposite sex parent. More sons (34.3 percent) had a fearful-avoidant attachment with their father than with their mother (28.1 percent). In contrast, for daughters, the frequency of fearful-avoidant attachment remained the same with both parents. This sheds initial light on the nature of the father role in Pakistani cultural systems, where they are expected to be dominant, strict, and emotionally nonexpressive, compared with Pakistani mothers. Therefore, anxious attachment patterns with fathers and attachment patterns with the opposite-sex parent is a theme that we urge researchers to examine further.

For the overall sample, the results also showed a significant effect of psychological distress during the COVID-19 outbreak on PIU (H2), highlighting the importance of the psychological and emotional state of people using the Internet as a means to overcome feelings of despair and loneliness during COVID-19 lockdown combined with pre-existing anxious features.^26,27

Our findings also show a significant difference in perceived psychological distress during the COVID-19 outbreak in people with secure versus insecure parental attachment (H3). We did not differentiate between parental attachment at this point and only explored global parental attachment, as we did not find any differences in the association between PIU and insecure paternal and maternal attachment. One of the functions of attachment is to regulate distress¹² and as anxiously and avoidantly attached individuals are less likely to regulate their emotions, those with fearful-avoidant and dismissive attachments reported higher psychological distress, as supported by other studies.^22,42

Conclusion

Our article highlights the importance of the quality of attachment patterns on psychological distress and how distress is associated with PIU in young adults.

It must be noted, however, that the sample size (n = 142) precludes generalizability of the results, and thus we take these with caution and treat them as preliminary, pointing to important factors that warrant further examination. Future research should use a multimethod approach to assess the variables helping to reduce potential biases. Studying these variables postpandemic would help in drawing meaningful comparisons and results.

These preliminary findings point toward psychological risk factors leading to depression and anxiety in Internet users. Future research could examine the moderating effect of psychological distress and possible mediating variables (personality factors, etc.) to evaluate the phenomenon. We would like to urge researchers to build on our article with a more gender-balanced sample to analyze differences in paternal and maternal attachments among sons and daughters in Pakistan, as parental roles in Pakistani culture tend to be more polarized than parents in western samples.⁴³

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

The authors thank the participants of this research for taking out their time to provide valuable information for the study.

Authors' Contributions

All authors certify that they have participated sufficiently in the article to take public responsibility for the content, including participation in the concept, design, analysis, writing, or revision of the article. Furthermore, each author certifies that this material or similar material has not been and will not be submitted to or published in any other publication before its appearance in the Journal of Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.

Author Disclosure Statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Funding Information

No funding was received for this article.

Supplementary Material

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