• Human Ecology Research
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• v.52 no.4
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• pp.337-345
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• 2014

The purpose of this study was to examine the mediating effect of the adult attachment in the relationship between the family of origin functioning and fear of intimacy. Data were collected through a questionnaire from 557 university students in the Jeollabuk-do of South Korea. The collected data were analyzed by basic descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlations and multiple regression analysis. Baron and Kenny's method was used and examined, and the Sobel test was performed to determine the mediating model's significance. It was adapted to SPSS ver. 18.0 for Windows. The major findings were as follows: first, the functioning of family-of-origin was negatively related to the fear of intimacy. In addition, younger students and students with less past dating experience were more likely to fear of intimacy. Second, fear of intimacy was influenced by the family-of-origin through the intermediate effect of attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety. Attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety had partial mediating effects on the relationship between family-of-origin functioning and the fear of intimacy. That is, family-of-origin functioning was shown to have not only a direct effect, but also an indirect effect through attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety, on the fear of intimacy. The results of this study suggest that the importance of family-of-origin functioning in order to improve Korean college students' intimacy abilities.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.1135-1149
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• 2008

The main purpose of this research was to examine a causal model concerning the direct and the indirect effect of family-of-origin functioning on psychological well-being through self-differentiation. The gender differences in the levels of the variables and the correlations among the variables were also examined. Participants were 587 female and 268 male students enrolled in nine different universities. The causal model was tested through structural equation model by using AMOS 8.0 program. The result showed that the levels of self-differentiation and psychological well-being were higher for males than for females, and that the three variables were positively associated to each other for both males and females. The result also indicated that male students' perception of family-of-origin functioning directly influenced their psychological well-being as well as indirectly through self-differentiation, while females' family-of-origin functioning had only a direct effect on their well-being. Results were discussed in terms of the applicability of self-differentiation to Korean college students and of the importance of family-of-origin functioning to improve students' mental health.