Semester

Summer

Date of Graduation

2013

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

PhD

College

College of Education and Human Services

Department

Counseling, Rehabilitation Counseling & Counseling Psychology

Committee Chair

Jeffrey A. Daniels.

Abstract

Relationship quality has been determined to be a positive factor in the treatment of depression (Brown, 2000; Fagan, 2009). Although the importance of marriage has been broadly studied, little research has investigated correlations among relationship quality, depressive moods, and attachment styles. Although the prevalence of depressive moods has been documented within populations of Taiwanese/Chinese international students and American college students (Wei et al., 2007), Wang and Mallinckrodt (2006) found that definitions of ideal attachment differ in these groups. Furthermore, researchers have not yet investigated the effect of cultural differences and attachment styles on the interactions between relationship quality and depressive moods among Taiwanese and Chinese international students.;Two-group and four-group comparison (Macready, 2005) methods were applied to answer the following questions: 1) Is there a significant difference between quality of romantic relationships or levels of depressive moods of American college students with anxious or avoidant attachment style and Taiwanese or Chinese college students studying in America with anxious or avoidant attachment style? 2) How does the effect differ between the two groups? A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was conducted to determine the effect on the linear combination of relationship quality and levels of depressive moods between the American students and Taiwanese/Chinese international students with different attachment categories (secure, preoccupied, dismissive, and fearful). Four follow-up analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were conducted to determine statistical significant differences in levels of depressive moods or relationship quality among Taiwanese/Chinese international students with different attachment categories.

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