The relationship of parenting styles and identity foreclosure: The role of parental attachment among high school students in Debre Markos Town, Ethiopia

Parents tend to make decisions regarding their adolescent children's career choices, forming romantic relationships, and academic roles in schools. This decision-making dependency is influenced by parenting styles and parental attachment. Therefore, this paper aims to determine the relationship between parenting styles and identity foreclosure with a focus on the mediating role of parental attachment during adolescence. As a result, the article employed a correlational design to determine the relationship. The research participants were 375 high school students selected from Debre Markos town through a stratified random sampling technique based on the school name, gender, and grade levels. In addition, for the data collection, adapted data gathering tools were used for collecting data on parenting styles, parental attachment, and identity foreclosure. After collecting the data, the data analysis was made using structural equation modeling. As the result revealed, authoritarian and authoritative parenting styles have a positive and significant effect on identity foreclosure, but the permissive parenting style didn't show a significant effect on adolescents' identity foreclosure status. Therefore, the study found that parental attachment acts as a positive and partial mediator in the link between foreclosure identity status and authoritarian parenting style. The findings of this study, however, demonstrated a favorable and substantial direct influence on foreclosure identity status rather than an indirect effect through parental connection between authoritarian parenting style and adolescents' foreclosure identity status. This implies that parents should strive to create an environment that is structured yet encouraging, emphasizing open communication and emotional warmth.