A Pathway to Meaning in Life: Early Parental Support, Attachment, and the Moderating Role of Alexithymia

The subjective experience of a sense of meaning in life is an important aspect of psychological well-being. Developmental experiences that contribute to attachment security or insecurity may shape individual differences in the capacity for meaning in life. Such relations may also be influenced by difficulties in emotional processing, such as alexithymia. The present study examined attachment anxiety and avoidance as mediators of the association between perceived parental emotional support during childhood and the presence of meaning in life, as well as the moderating role of alexithymia. A sample of 245 community members completed study assessments, and correlational and regression analyses were used to examine hypothesized parallel mediation and moderated mediation models. Attachment anxiety, but not attachment avoidance, was found to significantly mediate the association between early parental support and meaning in life. Conditional process analysis further indicated alexithymia to moderate this mediation pathway, with the mediating effect of attachment anxiety becoming stronger at lower levels of alexithymia. Thus, results indicated that positive perceptions of parental support were associated with attachment security, in the form of reduced attachment anxiety, which in turn was linked with greater meaning in life. Moreover, this pathway was strongest among individuals with relatively better emotional processing abilities, or lower alexithymia.