Children's Nicknames for their Parents and their Attachment Styles

Abstract

　　Previous studies found that nicknames among family members reflected family problems and functions. However, these studies did not suggest any specific relationships between any two family members. The present study focused on parent-child relationships represented by Children's Nicknames for their Parents (CNPs). We aim to show relevancy between the parentchild relationships represented by CNPs and children's attachment styles. We especially focused on whether CNPs including kinship terms [e.g., father or mother] affect on children’s attachment styles or not. This is because Japanese kinship terms reportedly reflected a certain level of parentchild relationships. A certain level of parent-child relationships commonly makes children's attachment styles more secure, less anxious and avoidant. Therefore, we hypothesized that children who addressed their parents with kinship term(s) would have more secure and less anxious and avoidant attachment styles than those who did not. Participants were 422 college or university students including 268 female students. Questionnaire consisted of the questionnaire of adult internal attachment style and questions regarding CNPs. The results suggested that participants who addressed their fathers with kinship term(s) significantly had more secure and less anxious attachment styles than those who did not. On the other hand, attachment styles were not differed significantly between those who addressed their mother with kinship term(s) and those who did not. These results were interpreted from the perspective of different parent roles between fathers and mothers. Clinical implications of these results were also discussed.