Recalled Paternal Acceptance-Rejection and Attachment Insecurity: Evidence from Spain, Italy, and Ecuador

Recalled paternal acceptance-rejection may be associated with adults’ expectations about closeness, trust, and emotional security, yet father-specific relational experiences have been examined less often than maternal or global parental experiences. This study examined associations between recalled paternal acceptance-rejection and adult attachment dimensions in 286 adults from Spain, Italy, and Ecuador. Participants completed the father-referent Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire and the Attachment Style Questionnaire. Reliability and cross-country measurement invariance were evaluated, followed by adjusted general linear models examining associations between paternal rejection and five attachment dimensions, exploratory tests of country moderation, and regression-tree analyses of a global attachment insecurity index. Higher recalled paternal rejection was associated with lower Confidence and higher Discomfort with Closeness, Need for Approval, and Preoccupation with Relationships after correction for multiple comparisons, whereas the association with Relationships as Secondary was weaker. Country did not significantly moderate these associations. In the exploratory regression-tree analysis, paternal rejection emerged as the most stable initial partitioning variable. By focusing on paternal representations across the three country groups, this study broadens adult attachment research beyond maternal or global parental models and supports the value of integrating father-specific relational experiences into models of attachment insecurity.