The influence of left-behind experience on the quality of intimate relationship among Chinese college students: the mediating role of attachment

The influence of left-behind experience on the quality of intimate relationship among Chinese college students: the mediating role of attachment | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article The influence of left-behind experience on the quality of intimate relationship among Chinese college students: the mediating role of attachment Xuejie Ye, Jun Gao, Youyang Wang This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-7200178/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 5 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Background Attachment theory posits that individuals develop internal working models of attachment through interactions with caregivers during early childhood, which subsequently influence the establishment of later relationships. In the context of social change in China, individuals with left-behind experience undergo prolonged separation from primary caregivers and experience changes in caregiving during critical developmental periods. This unique upbringing raises concerns about the long-term effects of left-behind experiences on adult intimate relationships.This study aims to examine the impact of left-behind experience on the quality of intimate relationships among Chinese college students and to explore the underlying mechanisms from the perspective of attachment theory. Methods A total of 609 college students (Mage = 20.37 ± 2.32 years; 356 with left-behind experience, 253 without left-behind experience) participated in this study. Measures assessed the quality of early parent-child relationships, adolescent friendship quality, adult attachment styles, and the quality of intimate relationships. Data were analyzed to test both direct effects and mediating pathways based on attachment theory. Results Left-behind experience exerted a negative impact on the quality of early parent-child relationships, adolescent friendship quality, adult attachment styles, and the intimacy quality of college students. Furthermore, based on the attachment theory, the stability of attachment among college students with left-behind experience (CSWLBE) was found to be more stable and aligned with the "prototype perspective," while those without left-behind experience (CSOLBE) was more consistent with the "revisionist perspective." Conclusion Left-behind experiences during childhood have enduring adverse effects on the development of intimate relationships in adulthood, mediated through attachment-related processes. These findings highlight the necessity of early interventions to support secure attachment formation among left-behind children, which may contribute to improved relational outcomes in later life. Left-behind Experience Intimate relationship Quality Parent-child Relationship Friendship Quality Adult Attachment Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 Figure 7 1 Introduction Since 1980s, substantial numbers of rural residents in China have migrated to cities, becoming an essential part of the urban labor force. This large-scale migration has resulted in many children being "left-behind," cared for by the other parent or grandparents who remained in rural areas ( 1 ). As these left-behind children grow into adulthood, those who received higher education formed the target group for researchers and were identified as "college students with left-behind experience" (CSWLBE). Given the critical developmental periods during which parental separation occurred, understanding how these early disruptions impact individuals' adult lives, particularly the quality of their intimate relationships, remains an essential research endeavor. A key characteristic of the left-behind experience is prolonged parental separation during early childhood. However, it remains unclear whether and how these early relational ruptures continue to influence important interpersonal relationships across the lifespan. Most existing research on CSWLBE has focused on their mental health outcomes, such as poorer psychological security ( 2 ), lower psychological flexibility ( 3 ), higher levels of social anxiety ( 4 , 5 ), and an increased risk of depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation ( 6 – 8 ). Additionally, studies have shown that CSWLBE exhibit higher rates of insecure adult attachment styles and greater attachment avoidance compared to college students without such experiences ( 9 ). These findings collectively support the risk hypothesis, suggesting that early left-behind experiences contribute to compromised mental health in adulthood. Although studies on CSWLBE covered many fields, there is few direct research on its influence on intimate relationship quality and its mechanism. Attachment theory based on developmental perspective has been widely used to understand the establishment and maintenance of human relationships. Attachment theory was first proposed by the British psychiatrist Bowlby( 10 ). And internal work model is an important construct in attachment theory. Bowlby defined it as "children gradually form a representation of ‘self’ and ‘other/world’ in the context of realistic attachment experience”. ( 11 ). This construct provides an theoretical framework for understanding attachment stability. Fraley( 12 ) summarized two basic theoretical perspectives on the stability of attachment: The first is the "prototype perspective" ,which assumes that the internal working model is dynamic and it changes as people encounter new relationships. The representations formed during infant remains unchanged and has a continuous impact on interpersonal interaction throughout one’s life cycle ( 13 , 14 ). The other perspective is called “revisionist perspective”, assuming that early attachment representations are revised and updated in the light of continuous experience, and thus may or may not correspond to subsequent attachment representations ( 15 – 17 ). Nevertheless, both "prototype perspective" and "revisionist perspective" emphasize that the internal working model continues to influence attachment behavior. Numerous studies have examined the factors that influence the stability of attachment across different developmental stages, highlighting the critical role of early relational patterns, such as many longitudinal studies confirmed that early-life attachment remains relatively stable as individuals transition into adulthood, and form similar adult attachment ( 18 – 20 ). However, these researches also suggest that attachment pattern is alterable. An important factor affecting the attachment stability is the change in the care system ( 21 , 22 ). For example, separation from mother or father in childhood has been found to affect the quality of attachment in adulthood ( 23 , 24 ). The effect size is related to the age of separation. The older the child is, the lower the proportion of insecure adult attachment type ( 25 ).Another factor affecting attachment stability is the relationship with significant others at different times. Social relationships outside the family, especially peer relationship ( 26 – 28 ) gradually influences internal working model when people grow up. Besides, attachment style also changes in adulthood ( 29 ). Since 1980s, researches have focused on attachment in adulthood. Hazan and Shaver proposed the concept of adult attachment in 1987 ( 30 ). And the association between insecure attachment and low relationship satisfaction was found to be clear and stable for both men and women ( 31 , 32 ). 2 The study objectives This retrospective study is used to explore two main questions: the first one is descriptive, that is, compared with Collegue Students without Left-Behind Experience( CSOLBE), how is the intimate relationship quality of Collegue Students with Left-Behind Experience(CSWLBE)? The second focuses on exploring the underlying mechanism of the phenomenon, that is, how does left-behind experience in early years influence the quality of college student's intimate relationship? Based on the definition of left-behind identity (the core is the early separation experience from the primary caregiver and the change of the primary caregiver) and the fact that CSWLBE were shown more impaired psycho-social functions than CSOLBE in many aspects, the first hypothesis of sub-study 1 was: Hypothesis H1: The intimate relationship quality of CSWLBE is significantly lower than that of CSOLBE. Given that the core feature of left-behind identity is early separation from caregivers and change of primary caregiver, such experience may negatively affect early relationship quality and make it easier to form insecure attachment style ( 23 , 24 , 33 , 34 ). Existing theoretical and empirical evidences support the stability of internal working model ( 13 , 14 ). Previous studies have also found that friendship quality during junior high school and adult attachment of CSWLBE is worse than CSOLBE ( 35 , 36 ). In this study, a second hypothesis focuses on the mechanism: Hypothesis H2a: Compared with CSOLBE, CSWLBE has lower ratings on the relationship quality with caregiver in their early years, lower ratings on the adolescence friendship quality and shows less secure adult attachment style. Drawing from literatures of attachment study, it is found that individuals gradually regard peers as important attachment figures during adolescence and early adulthood ( 27 , 37 ). This type of continuous experience can revise and update attachment representations formed in the childhood ( 15 , 16 ). Adolescent friendship quality is also shown to be associated with early parent-child relationship ( 10 , 38 ) and quality of intimate relationships ( 39 ). Meanwhile, both early parent-child relationship and adult attachment are important influencing factors of intimate relationship quality. Moreover, people with better intimate relationship reported better early parent-child relationship ( 40 ) and are more inclined to have secure adult attachment style ( 41 ). Collectively, these findings suggest a potential developmental pathway in which early caregiver–child relationship quality influences college students’ intimate relationships, through the sequential mediation of adolescent friendship quality and adult attachment. Nevertheless, the specific developmental pathways through which these variables interact may differ.As the stability of attachment remains inconclusive, fraley( 12 ) summarized two basic theoretical perspectives: the "prototype perspective", and the“revisionist perspective”,.And pinquart and his colleagues found that children with insecure attachment styles are more likely to maintain their attachment style if they are in danger( 42 ), which suggests that CSWLBE may be different from those CSOLBE in the stability of attachment due to the absence of parents and the change of caregivers in early life. Therefore, this study proposes the following hypothesis: Hypothesis H2b: adolescent friendship quality and adult attachment play a chain mediating role in the early caregiver-child relationship quality and adult intimacy quality. The mechanism may be different between CSWLBE and CSOLBE (see Figure 1). 3 Methods 3.1 Participants and procedure Participants were collected from 10 universities in Sichuan, Henan, Anhui, Guangdong and Hunan provinces, which have a high incidence of children being left-behind ( 43 ). Teachers or their schoolmates supported to collect participants online. The questionnaires were published on the professional online platform. Ethics approval was granted at the beginning of the questionnaire. A total of 719 questionnaires were collected. Screening questions such as "please select the option 'often'" were set. 609 valid questionnaires were finally obtained (the effective rate was 84.70%). There were 356 CSWLBE (33.99% male; Mage = 20.05, SD = 2.15); 253 CSOLBE (37.15%male; Mage = 20.83, SD = 2.48). 3.2 Measures 3.2.1 Early Parent-adolescent Cohesion Questionnaire Using “Family Adaptability and Cohesion Scales Ⅱ( 44 ) ” revised by Zhang and his colleagues ( 45 ), the instruction was modified to investigate the relationship between the participants and their caregivers before the age of 13. The questionnaire included three subscales, which were used to measure the relationship quality between participant and their fathers, mothers and other major caregivers in their early years. In this study, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of this three scales were 0.86, 0.84 and 0.79. 3.2.2 Friendship Quality Questionnaire-short form “Friendship Quality Questionnaire-short form” compiled by Zou based on Parker and Asher( 46 ) was used, which consists of 18 items, including six dimensions: validation and care, help and guidance, companionship and recreation, close disclosure and communication, conflict resolution, conflict and betrayal. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the scale was 0.89, and the six dimensions’were 0.75, 0.78, 0.79, 0.74, 0.74, and 0.65. 3.2.3 Experiences in Close Relationships-Relationship Structures Questionnaire (ECR-RS) Using “Experiences in Close Relationships-Relationship Structures Questionnaire”( 47 ) revised by Peng in 2020( 48 ). There are 7 items in the scale, which are divided into two dimensions: attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety. In this study, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the scale was 0.74, and the attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety was 0.81 and 0.87. 3.2.4 Questionnaire of College Students’ intimate Relationship Adjustment Using the “Questionnaire of intimate Relationship Adjustment” compiled by Liu and her colleagues ( 49 ). This study adopted the main part of this questionnaire, which contains 23 valid items, including four dimensions: intimacy satisfaction, growth cohesion, independence and communication. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the four dimensions was 0.91, 0.91, 0.71, 0.79, and the total scale was 0.94 3.2.5 Data analyses Amos 23.0 was used to test the validity of the questionnaire. SPSS 23.0 was used to test the reliability of the questionnaire and make descriptive analysis, difference test and correlation analysis. The PROCESS program developed by Hayes was used to test the mediation model( 50 ), and the non-parametric percentile Bootstrap method was used to test the significant level of mediation effect. 4 Results Harman single-factor test ( 51 ) was used for factor analysis of all items in these questionnaires except Self-compiled Left-behind Experience Questionnaire. The results showed that the variance of the first major factor was 17.71% (less than the critical standard of 40%), and there were 18 factors’ characteristic roots greater than 1, which indicated that the common method variation of this study did not affect the study validity. 4.1 Descriptive statistics and comparison The results showed that most of the parents in the left-behind families were both out for work (63.76%), the main caregivers during left-behind period were grandparents (39.24%) and mothers (28.93%). The average age of the child when their father was out for work was 4.77 ± 4.13 years old, and the average age of the child when their mother was out for work was 4.73 ± 4.33 years old. In addition, nearly half of the parents went out when their children were less than 3 years old. According to the data in Table 1.1 , CSWLBE performed significantly worse than CSOLBE in the total score of intimate relationship quality. CSWLBE also showed lower scores in father-child and mother-child relationship in early years. Total score of adolescent friendship quality of CSWLBE were significantly lower than CSOLBE. The score of attachment avoidance of CSWLBE was significantly higher than that of CSOLBE. There was no significant difference in the score of attachment anxiety. Table 1.1 Statistic results of parent-child relationship quality and adult attachment variables CSWLBE( n = 224) CSOLBE( n = 175) Total( N = 399) t p Total score of intimate relationship quality 3.93 ± 0.58 4.07 ± 0.57 3.99 ± 0.58 -2.291 .022 variables CSWLBE( n = 249) CSOLBE( n = 248) Total( N = 497) t p Early father-child 2.71 ± 0.77 3.17 ± 0.80 2.90 ± 0.82 -7.100 .000 Early mother-child 3.07 ± 0.76 3.52 ± 0.66 3.26 ± 0.75 -7.730 .000 Early other caregivers-child 3.29 ± 0.67 3.40 ± 0.53 3.32 ± 0.64 -1.202 .230 Friendship quality score 3.77 ± 0.57 3.86 ± 0.52 3.81 ± 0.55 -2.037 .042 Attachment avoidance 2.78 ± 1.14 2.46 ± 1.04 2.65 ± 1.11 3.459 .001 Attachment anxiety 4.31 ± 1.61 4.09 ± 1.66 4.22 ± 1.63 1.607 .109 4.2 Correlation analysis of early caregiver-child relationship, adolescent friendship quality, adult attachment and intimate relationship quality The correlation analysis results were shown in Table 1.2 . In terms of the correlation between early parent-child relationship and adolescent friendship quality, there was a significant low positive correlation between early relationship with father, mother or other caregivers and friendship quality in CSWLBE. However, the friendship quality in adolescence only had a significant low positive correlation with the relationship with other caregivers in the early years The correlation between parent-child relationship in the early years and adult attachment showed that CSWLBE had a significant low negative correlation between early father-child relationship and adult attachment anxiety, early mother-child relationship and adult attachment avoidant, and early other caregiver relationship and adult attachment’s two dimensions. While there was no significant correlation between early parent-child relationship and adult attachment in CSOLBE. The correlation between parent-child relationship in the early years and intimate relationship quality in the adulthood showed that CSWLBE only had a significant low positive correlation between early other caregivers-child relationship and intimate relationship quality, while CSOLBE had a significant low positive correlation between early father-child relationship and intimate relationship quality. The correlation between adolescent friendship quality and adult attachment revealed that the total score of adolescent friendship quality had a significant low negative correlation with attachment avoidance. And in the correlation between adolescent friendship quality and adult intimate relationship quality, the total score of friendship quality had significant low positive correlation with adult intimate relationship quality. Finally, adult attachment had a significant negative correlation with adult intimate relationship quality, especially for attachment avoidance, the correlation between the two had a significant moderate correlation. Table 1.2 Correlations of the research variables Variables Friendship quality Attachment avoidance Attachment anxiety Intimate relationship quality Early father-child CSWLBE .071 − .03 − .136 * .073 CSOLBE .262 ** − .036 − .111 .162 * Early mother-child CSWLBE .082 − .137 ** .019 .034 CSOLBE .291 ** − .118 − .025 .069 Early other caregivers-child CSWLBE .338 ** − .182 ** − .230 ** .291 ** CSOLBE .283 * .044 − .194 .135 Friendship quality CSWLBE − .238 ** − .091 .271 ** CSOLBE − .290 ** − .008 .283 ** attachment avoidance CSWLBE .143 ** − .641 ** CSOLBE .068 − .676 ** attachment anxiety CSWLBE − .271** CSOLBE − .233** Note: * p < .05, ** p < .01 4.3 The chain mediating analysis in CSWLBE According to the significant correlation analysis results in CSWLBE, two chain mediation models were established: adolescent friendship quality and attachment avoidance chain mediated the relationship between early other caregiver-child relationship quality and intimate relationship quality; adolescent friendship quality and attachment anxiety chain mediated the relationship between early other caregiver- child relationship quality and intimate relationship quality. Further test of the mediating effect showed that: the indirect effect 2e (0.13), 3e (0.04) and 2f (0.06) were all reached the significant level (the upper and lower bounds of 95% confidence interval did not overlap with 0, s ee Table 1.3 ), the effect path diagrams were showed in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3 . Table 1.3 Decomposition results of mediation analysis model Effect size Boot se 95% confidence interval (ab/c) Upper lower Total indirect effect: lnd1e + lnd2e + lnd3e 0.18 0.07 0.04 0.32 64.60% lnd1e:other caregiver→friendship→intimacy 0.01 0.04 -0.06 0.09 4.31% Ind2e:other caregiver→avoidance→intimacy 0.13 0.05 0.01 0.23 44.92% Ind3e:other caregiver→friendship→avoidance→intimacy 0.04 0.02 0.01 0.08 15.37% Total indirect effect: lnd1f + lnd2f + lnd3f 0.11 0.05 0.02 0.21 39.68% lnd1f:other caregiver→friendship→intimacy 0.05 0.04 -0.03 0.14 17.92% Ind2f:other caregiver→anxiety→intimacy 0.06 0.03 0.01 0.12 20.00% Ind3f:other caregiver→friendship→anxiety→intimacy 0.00 0.01 -0.01 0.02 1.76% 4.4 The chain mediating analysis in CSOLBE According to the significant correlation analysis results in CSOLBE, four chain mediation models were established (see in Fig. 4 – 7 ). As shown in Table 1.4 , further testing of the mediation effect revealed that: in the chain mediation model 3, only the indirect effect 3g(0.03) was significant (the upper and lower bounds of 95% confidence interval did not overlap with 0), the effect path was shown in Fig. 4 ; in the chain mediation model 4, the indirect effect 1h(0.03) and 3h(0.04) both reached the significant level (the upper and lower bounds of 95% confidence interval did not overlap with 0), the effect path was shown in Fig. 5 . As the chain mediating effect of adolescent friendship quality and attachment avoidance was 0.04, which was opposite to the direct effect value − 0.02, suggested that adolescent friendship quality and attachment avoidance played a covering effect in the relationship of early mother-child relationship quality on adult intimate relaionship quality. In the chain mediation model 5 and 6, only the indirect effect 1i(0.04) and 1j(0.07) were significant (the upper and lower bounds of 95% confidence interval did not overlap with 0), the effect path were shown in Figs. 6 and 7 . Table 1.4 Decomposition results of mediation analysis model Effect size Boot se 95% confidence interval (ab/c) Upper lower Total indirect effect: lnd1g + lnd2g + lnd3g 0.01 0.04 -0.07 0.09 8.24% lnd1g:father→friendship→intimacy 0.01 0.01 -0.01 0.04 12.27% Ind2g:father→avoidance→intimacy -0.03 0.03 -0.10 0.03 -28.66% Ind3g:father→friendship→avoidance→intimacy 0.03 0.01 0.01 0.06 24.72% Total indirect effect: lnd1h + lnd2h + lnd3h 0.07 0.04 -0.01 0.16 437.50% lnd1h:mother→friendship→intimacy 0.03 0.02 0.00 0.06 187.50% Ind2h:mother→avoidance→intimacy 0.01 0.04 -0.06 0.08 62.50% Ind3h:mother→friendship→avoidance→intimacy 0.04 0.02 0.01 0.07 250.00% Total indirect effect: lnd1i + lnd2i + lnd3i 0.06 0.02 0.02 0.10 49.26% lnd1i:father→friendship→intimacy 0.04 0.02 0.01 0.09 38.12% Ind2i:father→anxiety→intimacy 0.01 0.02 -0.01 0.05 12.36% Ind3i:father→friendship→anxiety→intimacy 0.00 0.00 -0.01 0.01 -1.23% Total indirect effect: lnd1j + lnd2j + lnd3j 0.07 0.03 0.02 0.13 124.83% lnd1j:mother→friendship→intimacy 0.07 0.02 0.02 0.12 116.26% Ind2j:mother→anxiety→intimacy 0.01 0.02 -0.03 0.04 11.01% Ind3j:mother→friendship→anxiety→intimacy -0.00 0.01 -0.01 0.01 -2.45% 5 Discussion The present study explores the impact of left-behind experience on the quality of intimate relationship among college students. Besides, it aims to verify the applicability of the two attachment theory-based pathways on intimate relationship quality, and the differences among college students with or without left-behind experience. The findings indicate that left-behind experiences exert a negative influence on early parent-child relationships, adolescent friendship quality, adult attachment and intimate relationships. Additionally, the stability of attachment among CSWLBE and CSOLBE might operate differently, with CSWLBE demonstrating more stability and tendency towards “prototype perspective”. In contrast, the stability of attachment among CSOLBE aligns more closely to the “revisionist perspective”. Attachment is more stable in CSWLBE, which is consistent with the studies supporting“prototype perspective”( 19 , 20 , 52 , 53 ). The experience of being left behind destroys the quality of early other caregiver-child relationship, therefore affects friendship quality during adolescence. The above process makes adult attachment model more avoidant and then destroys the quality of intimate relationship. However, this contradicts previous research that attachment styles are more likely to change when negative life events occur ( 18 , 54 , 55 ), which may be due to the fact that children of insecure attachment are more likely to maintain their attachment pattern when at risk ( 42 ). Additionally, the chain mediating results revealed that the mediating effect mainly performs through the influence of early relationships with other caregivers, suggesting that when parents are out, other caregivers can replace and play an important role in building attachment relationship. This finding is also aligned with results in previous studies that grandparent can also become important attachment figures (56, 57). On the other hand, the attachment patterns of CSOLBE are inclined to the "revisionist perspective". The results of the chain mediating effect in CSOLBE indicated that adult attachment cannot directly mediate the influence of early parent-child relationship on the intimate relationship quality, but adolescent friendship quality has a stronger correction effect on the influencing mechanism of attachment than that of CSWLBE. Although a good early caregiver-child relationship does not directly predict a secure adult attachment, when people experienced good early caregiver-child relationship and good adolescent friendship quality, secure adult attachment are more common, which will then easy to form high-quality intimate relationship. It provides a realistic proof for the claim made by researchers who favor changes in the study of attachment stability, that changes in attachment representations have a potential to compensate, even go beyond early representations. The long-term consequence of this dynamic is that it should become increasingly difficult to predict individuals’ attachment based on knowledge of their attachment in the past ( 16 , 19 ). 6 Limitations and future research This study found that left-behind experience does influence intimate relationship quality of college students, which influencing mechanisms are different among college students with or without left-behind experience. The difference in the intimate relationship quality of the two cohorts is partly because CSWLBE’s caregivers were changed to grandparents. However, due to the complexity of family structure in modern society, even in the families of CSOLBE, grandparent also plays an important role. Besides, among CSWLBE, there is a high rate of left-behind children growing up with other parents who are at home. Thus, the relationship with caregiver is complex regardless of whether they are left-behind children or not. In addition, current studies on the impact of multiple attachment figures on social development focus more on mother-child attachment and father-child attachment in childhood or adolescence ( 58 – 61 ), instead of grandparent-child attachment in adulthood. In the context of Western culture, attention is paid to grandparent support only in high-risk families ( 62 , 63 ), which is quite different from Chinese social context. Although there are a few studies on adult attachment of left-behind college students in China ( 64 , 65 ), none of these studies elaborated the influence of different attachment figures on adult attachment. In addition, researchers have not yet unified the influencing forms of different attachment figures, including the “dominant hypothesis” that mother-child attachment plays a dominant role in children's social development ( 66 , 67 ) and the “specificity hypothesis” that different attachment figures have different effects on different aspects of social development ( 68 ). Therefore, in order to clarify the influence of different caregiver on the quality of intimate relationship, future researches should pay more attention to the structure of different caregivers in the family when collecting data. More research on grandparent rearing will also expand the researches of how multiple attachment figures effect the quality of adult attachment and intimate relationship. Abbreviations CSWLBE College students with left-behind experience CSOLBE College students without left-behind experience Declarations Ethics approval and consent to participate The studies involving humans were approved by Ethics Committee of Fudan University. The research was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and relevant institutional and national guidelines. The participants provided their written informed consent to participante in this study.Written informed consent was obtained from the individual(s) for the publication of any potentially identifiable images or data included in this article. Consent for publication Not applicable. Competing interests The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. Funding The authors declare that this research received no external funding. Author Contribution YXJ was responsible for investigation, methodology, and data curation, and drafted the original manuscript. GJ contributed to writing—review and editing—and supervised the overall project. WYY conducted formal analysis and provided translation support. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. Acknowledgement The authors are grateful for the support of the teachers who help us to collect data from 10 universities in Sichuan, Henan, Anhui, Guangdong and Hunan provinces. And we further extend our deepest appreciation to the participants who shared their experience with us. Data Availability The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. References Lyu L, Mei Z, Yan F, Wang X, Duan C. The status of rural children left-behind in China: 2010–2020. China Population and Development Studies. 2024;8(2):97–111. 10.1007/s42379-024-00159-2 Zhang C, Xu W. 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Davila J, Burge D, Hammen C. Why does attachment style change? J Personal Soc Psychol. 1997;73(4):826–38. 10.1037/0022-3514.73.4.826 . Hazan C, Shaver P, ROMANTIC LOVE CONCEPTUALIZED AS AN, ATTACHMENT PROCESS. J Personal Soc Psychol. 1987;52(3):511–24. 10.1037/0022-3514.52.3.511 . Lowyck B, Luyten P, Demyttenaere K, Corveleyn J. The role of romantic attachment and self-criticism and dependency for the relationship satisfaction of community adults. J Family Therapy. 2008;30(1):78–95. 10.1111/j.1467-6427.2008.00417.x . Sommantico M, Donizzetti AR, Parrello S, De Rosa B. Predicting Young Adults' Romantic Relationship Quality: Sibling Ties and Adult Attachment Styles. J Fam Issues. 2019;40(5):662–88. 10.1177/0192513x18820381 . Zimmermann P, Becker-Stoll F. Stability of attachment representations during adolescence: the influence of ego-identity status. J Adolesc. 2002;25(1):107–24. 10.1006/jado.2001.0452 . Tan L, Wang C, Liu H. Attachment insecurity and interpersonal difficulties among college students with early caregiving disruptions: Evidence from a Chinese sample. Child Youth Serv Rev. 2024;157:107–20. 10.1016/j.childyouth.2024.107120 . Li X, Gao WB, Luo J, Du YF. Adult attachment and its influencing factors in undergraduate from rural areas with left-behind experience in childhood. China Public Health. 2010;6:3. 10.11847/zgggws2010-26-06-61 . Sun TY. The effects of countryside junior high school students’ early left-behind experience on peer interaction. J Heilongjiang Inst Teacher Dev. 2013;1:3doi. 10.3969/j.issn.1001-7836.2013.01.042 . Trinke SJ, Bartholomew K. Hierarchies of attachment relationships in young adulthood. J Social Personal Relationships. 1997;14(5):603–25. 10.1177/0265407597145002 . De Goede IHA, Branje SJT, Delsing M, Meeus WHJ. Linkages Over Time Between Adolescents' Relationships with Parents and Friends. J Youth Adolesc. 2009;38(10):1304–15. 10.1007/s10964-009-9403-2 . Kochendorfer LB, Kerns KA. Perceptions of parent-child attachment relationships and friendship qualities: Predictors of romantic relationship involvement and quality in adolescence. J Youth Adolesc. 2017;46(5):1009–21. 10.1007/s10964-017-0645-0 . Collins NL, Read SJ, ADULT, ATTACHMENT, WORKING MODELS, AND RELATIONSHIP QUALITY IN DATING COUPLES. J Personal Soc Psychol. 1990;58(4):644–63. 10.1037/0022-3514.58.4.644 . Mikulincer M, Shaver PR. Attachment, group–related processes, and psychotherapy. Int J Group Psychother. 2007;57(2):233–45. 10.1521/ijgp.2007.57.2.233 . Pinquart M, Feussner C, Ahnert L. Meta-analytic evidence for stability in attachments from infancy to early adulthood. Attach Hum Dev. 2013;15(2):189–218. 10.1080/14616734.2013.746257 . Lyu Lidan MZ, Li R, Shu L, Fang Y, Xu W. Status and Changes of the Rural Children Left Behind in China: 2010–2020. Popul Res. 2024;48(1):103–17. Olson DH. Circumplex model of marital and family systems. J family therapy. 2000;22(2):144–67. 10.1111/1467-6427.00144 . Zhang WX, Wang MP, Andrew F. Experience for autonomy, Belief about parental authoriy and parent-adolescent conflict and cohesion. Acta Physiol Sinica. 2006;9):868 – 76.doi:32110.14.2006.00868. Parker JG, Asher SR. Friendship and friendship quality in middle childhood: Links with peer group acceptance and feelings of loneliness and social dissatisfaction. Dev Psychol. 1993;29(4):611. 10.1037/0012-1649.29.4.611 . Fraley RC, Heffernan ME, Vicary AM, Brumbaugh CC. The Experiences in Close Relationships-Relationship Structures Questionnaire: A Method for Assessing Attachment Orientations Across Relationships. Psychol Assess. 2011;23(3):615–25. 10.1037/a0022898 . peng XFL, Wang CQ, Yin Y. The Chinese version of the Experiences in Close Relationships-Relationship Structures Scale (ECR-RS) assesses the validity and reliability for middle school and college students. Chin Mental Health J. 2020;34(11):7. 10.3969/j.issn.1000-6729.2020.11.012 . Liu L, Sun YQ, Guo LY, Shen Y. Questionnaire development of college students’ intimate relationship adjustment and its reliability and validity. J Liaoning Normal University(Social Sci Edition). 2015;38(1):6doi. 10.16216/j.cnki.lsxbwk.201501060 . Hayes AF. PROCESS: A versatile computational tool for observed variable mediation, moderation, and conditional process modeling. University of Kansas, KS; 2012. Zhou H, Long LR. Statistical remedies for common method biases. Advances in Psychological Science. 2004;12(6):942–42. 10.3969/j.issn.1671-3710.2004.06.018 Kobak R, Bosmans G. Attachment and psychopathology: a dynamic model of the insecure cycle. Curr Opin Psychol. 2019;25:76–80. 10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.02.018 . Opie JE, McIntosh JE, Esler TB, Duschinsky R, George C, Schore A, et al. Early childhood attachment stability and change: a meta-analysis. Attach Hum Dev. 2021;23(6):897–930. 10.1080/14616734.2020.1800769 . Egeland B, Sroufe LA. ATTACHMENT AND EARLY MALTREATMENT. Child Development. 1981;52(1):44–52. Weinfield NS, Sroufe LA, Egeland B. Attachment from infancy to early adulthood in a high-risk sample: Continuity, discontinuity, and their correlates. Child Dev. 2000;71(3):695–702. 10.1111/1467-8624.00178 . Cassidy J. The complexity of the caregiving system: A perspective from attachment theory. Psychol Inq. 2000;11(2):86–91. 10.2307/1449019 . Myers BJ, Jarvis PA, Creasey GL. Infants' behavior with their mothers and grandmothers. Infant Behav Dev. 1987;10(3):245–59. 10.1016/0163-6383(87)90015-4 . Boldt LJ, Kochanska G, Yoon JE, Koenig Nordling J. Children’s attachment to both parents from toddler age to middle childhood: Links to adaptive and maladaptive outcomes. Attach Hum Dev. 2014;16(3):211–29. 10.1080/14616734.2014.889181 . Brumariu LE, Kerns KA. Parent-child attachment and internalizing symptoms in childhood and adolescence: A review of empirical findings and future directions. Dev Psychopathol. 2010;22(1):177–203. 10.1017/s0954579409990344 . Kochanska G, Kim S. Early attachment organization with both parents and future behavior problems: From infancy to middle childhood. Child Dev. 2013;84(1):283–96. 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01852.x . Larose S, Boivin M. Attachment to parents, social support expectations, and socioemotional adjustment during the high school-college transition. J Res Adolescence. 1998;8(1):1–27. Edwards OW, Taub GE. A conceptual pathways model to promote positive youth development in children raised by their grandparents. School Psychol Q. 2009;24(3):160. 10.1037/a0016226 . Kelley SJ, Whitley DM, Campos PE. Behavior problems in children raised by grandmothers: The role of caregiver distress, family resources, and the home environment. Children. youth Serv Rev. 2011;33(11):2138–45. 10.1016/j.childyouth.2011.06.021 . wang Y. Study on the relationship between adult attachment and social support and subjective well-being of college students left-home in childhood. Psychol Explor. 2010;30(2):71–5. 10.7666/d.d064249 . He H, Zeng QL, Wang HSQ. Analysis on left-behind experience influence on depression status among college students with rural Hukou in Beijing. Chin J Health Educ. 2018;34(11):973–78. 10.16168/j.cnki.issn.1002-9982.2018.11.003 . Main M, Weston DR. The Quality of The Toddlers Relationship to Mother and to Father - related to conflict behavior and the readiness to establish new relationships. Child Dev. 1981;52(3):932–40. 10.1111/j.1467-8624.1981.tb03134.x . Suess GJ, Grossmann KE, Sroufe LA. Effects of infant attachment to mother and father on quality of adaptation in preschool: From dyadic to individual organisation of self. Int J Behav Dev. 1992;15(1):43–65. 10.1177/01650254920150010 . Bretherton I. Fathers in attachment theory and research: A review. Emerg Top Father Attachment. 2014;9–23. 10.1080/03004430903414661 . Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Under Review Version 1 posted Reviewers invited by journal 05 Sep, 2025 Editor invited by journal 04 Aug, 2025 Editor assigned by journal 28 Jul, 2025 Submission checks completed at journal 28 Jul, 2025 First submitted to journal 23 Jul, 2025 You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-7200178","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":513100216,"identity":"987da0b5-066b-497d-b5bf-fd38c00703ae","order_by":0,"name":"Xuejie Ye","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"The affiliated Kangning Hospital of Ningbo University","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Xuejie","middleName":"","lastName":"Ye","suffix":""},{"id":513100217,"identity":"0f647989-99d9-4945-805f-b1205997e470","order_by":1,"name":"Jun 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adolescent friendship and attachment avoidance (model 1)\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"2.jpg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7200178/v1/4b58993c561a8c7f25135adf.jpg"},{"id":91305761,"identity":"485d2788-e76a-430e-a489-b0ab452a44cf","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-09-15 06:30:07","extension":"jpg","order_by":3,"title":"Figure 3","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":43745,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003echain mediation model path of adolescent friendship and attachment anxiety (model 2)\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"3.jpg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7200178/v1/dae48d4c9cef3fcb85a1da09.jpg"},{"id":91305763,"identity":"864010b2-79cc-481f-bc7b-d5e68c1207cc","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-09-15 06:30:07","extension":"jpg","order_by":4,"title":"Figure 4","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":38753,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003echain mediation model path of adolescent friendship and attachment avoidance (model 3)\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"4.jpg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7200178/v1/a1d60b589b1920d7fb22f087.jpg"},{"id":91304176,"identity":"f340b219-1476-4300-9c17-874a1d245e67","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-09-15 06:22:07","extension":"jpg","order_by":5,"title":"Figure 5","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":39618,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003echain mediation model path of adolescent friendship and attachment avoidance (model 4)\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"5.jpg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7200178/v1/cad12a1ec03f817f3681b3d8.jpg"},{"id":91304182,"identity":"15ad80fd-2358-4809-b32d-fbd148fd5b38","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-09-15 06:22:07","extension":"jpg","order_by":6,"title":"Figure 6","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":40481,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003echain mediation model path of adolescent friendship and attachment anxiety (model 5)\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"6.jpg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7200178/v1/573112c7687b87d94a876f91.jpg"},{"id":91304173,"identity":"ca20380e-96b9-4598-8243-06b691675815","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-09-15 06:22:07","extension":"jpg","order_by":7,"title":"Figure 7","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":40380,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003echain mediation model path of adolescent friendship and attachment anxiety (model 6)\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"7.jpg","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7200178/v1/2a33b0a54e697cbeeadb06ed.jpg"},{"id":91332448,"identity":"96f17991-ed2f-482f-ab80-98312b0e5f3a","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-09-15 11:11:53","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":1368271,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-7200178/v1/f623a8cd-519a-46a0-9f28-4e2a11dfbea1.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"The influence of left-behind experience on the quality of intimate relationship among Chinese college students: the mediating role of attachment","fulltext":[{"header":"1 Introduction","content":"\u003cp\u003eSince 1980s, substantial numbers of rural residents in China have migrated to cities, becoming an essential part of the urban labor force. This large-scale migration has resulted in many children being \"left-behind,\" cared for by the other parent or grandparents who remained in rural areas (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e). As these left-behind children grow into adulthood, those who received higher education formed the target group for researchers and were identified as \"college students with left-behind experience\" (CSWLBE). Given the critical developmental periods during which parental separation occurred, understanding how these early disruptions impact individuals' adult lives, particularly the quality of their intimate relationships, remains an essential research endeavor.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA key characteristic of the left-behind experience is prolonged parental separation during early childhood. However, it remains unclear whether and how these early relational ruptures continue to influence important interpersonal relationships across the lifespan. Most existing research on CSWLBE has focused on their mental health outcomes, such as poorer psychological security (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e), lower psychological flexibility (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR3\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e), higher levels of social anxiety (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR5\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e5\u003c/span\u003e), and an increased risk of depressive symptoms and suicidal ideation (\u003cspan additionalcitationids=\"CR7\" citationid=\"CR6\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e6\u003c/span\u003e\u0026ndash;\u003cspan citationid=\"CR8\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e8\u003c/span\u003e). Additionally, studies have shown that CSWLBE exhibit higher rates of insecure adult attachment styles and greater attachment avoidance compared to college students without such experiences (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR9\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e9\u003c/span\u003e). These findings collectively support the risk hypothesis, suggesting that early left-behind experiences contribute to compromised mental health in adulthood.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAlthough studies on CSWLBE covered many fields, there is few direct research on its influence on intimate relationship quality and its mechanism. Attachment theory based on developmental perspective has been widely used to understand the establishment and maintenance of human relationships. Attachment theory was first proposed by the British psychiatrist Bowlby(\u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e10\u003c/span\u003e). And internal work model is an important construct in attachment theory. Bowlby defined it as \"children gradually form a representation of \u0026lsquo;self\u0026rsquo; and \u0026lsquo;other/world\u0026rsquo; in the context of realistic attachment experience\u0026rdquo;. (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR11\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e11\u003c/span\u003e). This construct provides an theoretical framework for understanding attachment stability. Fraley(\u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e12\u003c/span\u003e) summarized two basic theoretical perspectives on the stability of attachment: The first is the \"prototype perspective\" ,which assumes that the internal working model is dynamic and it changes as people encounter new relationships. The representations formed during infant remains unchanged and has a continuous impact on interpersonal interaction throughout one\u0026rsquo;s life cycle (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e13\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR14\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e14\u003c/span\u003e). The other perspective is called \u0026ldquo;revisionist perspective\u0026rdquo;, assuming that early attachment representations are revised and updated in the light of continuous experience, and thus may or may not correspond to subsequent attachment representations (\u003cspan additionalcitationids=\"CR16\" citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e15\u003c/span\u003e\u0026ndash;\u003cspan citationid=\"CR17\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e17\u003c/span\u003e). Nevertheless, both \"prototype perspective\" and \"revisionist perspective\" emphasize that the internal working model continues to influence attachment behavior.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNumerous studies have examined the factors that influence the stability of attachment across different developmental stages, highlighting the critical role of early relational patterns, such as many longitudinal studies confirmed that early-life attachment remains relatively stable as individuals transition into adulthood, and form similar adult attachment (\u003cspan additionalcitationids=\"CR19\" citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e18\u003c/span\u003e\u0026ndash;\u003cspan citationid=\"CR20\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e20\u003c/span\u003e). However, these researches also suggest that attachment pattern is alterable. An important factor affecting the attachment stability is the change in the care system (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e21\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR22\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e22\u003c/span\u003e). For example, separation from mother or father in childhood has been found to affect the quality of attachment in adulthood (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR23\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e23\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR24\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e24\u003c/span\u003e). The effect size is related to the age of separation. The older the child is, the lower the proportion of insecure adult attachment type (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e25\u003c/span\u003e).Another factor affecting attachment stability is the relationship with significant others at different times. Social relationships outside the family, especially peer relationship (\u003cspan additionalcitationids=\"CR27\" citationid=\"CR26\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e26\u003c/span\u003e\u0026ndash;\u003cspan citationid=\"CR28\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e28\u003c/span\u003e) gradually influences internal working model when people grow up. Besides, attachment style also changes in adulthood (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR29\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e29\u003c/span\u003e). Since 1980s, researches have focused on attachment in adulthood. Hazan and Shaver proposed the concept of adult attachment in 1987 (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e30\u003c/span\u003e). And the association between insecure attachment and low relationship satisfaction was found to be clear and stable for both men and women (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e31\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e32\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"2 The study objectives","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis retrospective study is used to explore two main questions: the first one is descriptive, that is, compared with Collegue Students without Left-Behind Experience( CSOLBE), how is the intimate relationship quality of Collegue Students with Left-Behind Experience(CSWLBE)? The second focuses on exploring the underlying mechanism of the phenomenon, that is, how does left-behind experience in early years influence the quality of college student's intimate relationship?\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBased on the definition of left-behind identity (the core is the early separation experience from the primary caregiver and the change of the primary caregiver) and the fact that CSWLBE were shown more impaired psycho-social functions than CSOLBE in many aspects, the first hypothesis of sub-study 1 was:\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHypothesis H1: The intimate relationship quality of CSWLBE is significantly lower than that of CSOLBE.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGiven that the core feature of left-behind identity is early separation from caregivers and change of primary caregiver, such experience may negatively affect early relationship quality and make it easier to form insecure attachment style (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR23\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e23\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR24\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e24\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR33\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e33\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR34\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e34\u003c/span\u003e). Existing theoretical and empirical evidences support the stability of internal working model (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e13\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR14\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e14\u003c/span\u003e). Previous studies have also found that friendship quality during junior high school and adult attachment of CSWLBE is worse than CSOLBE (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e35\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR36\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e36\u003c/span\u003e). In this study, a second hypothesis focuses on the mechanism:\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHypothesis H2a: Compared with CSOLBE, CSWLBE has lower ratings on the relationship quality with caregiver in their early years, lower ratings on the adolescence friendship quality and shows less secure adult attachment style.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDrawing from literatures of attachment study, it is found that individuals gradually regard peers as important attachment figures during adolescence and early adulthood (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e27\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR37\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e37\u003c/span\u003e). This type of continuous experience can revise and update attachment representations formed in the childhood (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e15\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR16\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e16\u003c/span\u003e). Adolescent friendship quality is also shown to be associated with early parent-child relationship (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e10\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR38\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e38\u003c/span\u003e) and quality of intimate relationships (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR39\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e39\u003c/span\u003e). Meanwhile, both early parent-child relationship and adult attachment are important influencing factors of intimate relationship quality. Moreover, people with better intimate relationship reported better early parent-child relationship (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR40\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e40\u003c/span\u003e) and are more inclined to have secure adult attachment style (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e41\u003c/span\u003e). Collectively, these findings suggest a potential developmental pathway in which early caregiver\u0026ndash;child relationship quality influences college students\u0026rsquo; intimate relationships, through the sequential mediation of adolescent friendship quality and adult attachment.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNevertheless, the specific developmental pathways through which these variables interact may differ.As the stability of attachment remains inconclusive, fraley(\u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e12\u003c/span\u003e) summarized two basic theoretical perspectives: the \"prototype perspective\", and the\u0026ldquo;revisionist perspective\u0026rdquo;,.And pinquart and his colleagues found that children with insecure attachment styles are more likely to maintain their attachment style if they are in danger(\u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e42\u003c/span\u003e), which suggests that CSWLBE may be different from those CSOLBE in the stability of attachment due to the absence of parents and the change of caregivers in early life. Therefore, this study proposes the following hypothesis:\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHypothesis H2b: adolescent friendship quality and adult attachment play a chain mediating role in the early caregiver-child relationship quality and adult intimacy quality. The mechanism may be different between CSWLBE and CSOLBE (see Figure 1).\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"3 Methods","content":"\u003cdiv id=\"Sec4\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e3.1 Participants and procedure\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eParticipants were collected from 10 universities in Sichuan, Henan, Anhui, Guangdong and Hunan provinces, which have a high incidence of children being left-behind (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR43\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e43\u003c/span\u003e). Teachers or their schoolmates supported to collect participants online. The questionnaires were published on the professional online platform. Ethics approval was granted at the beginning of the questionnaire. A total of 719 questionnaires were collected. Screening questions such as \"please select the option 'often'\" were set. 609 valid questionnaires were finally obtained (the effective rate was 84.70%). There were 356 CSWLBE (33.99% male; Mage\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;20.05, SD\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;2.15); 253 CSOLBE (37.15%male; Mage\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;20.83, SD\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;2.48).\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec5\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e3.2 Measures\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec6\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e3.2.1 Early Parent-adolescent Cohesion Questionnaire\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eUsing \u0026ldquo;Family Adaptability and Cohesion Scales Ⅱ(\u003cspan citationid=\"CR44\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e44\u003c/span\u003e) \u0026rdquo; revised by Zhang and his colleagues (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR45\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e45\u003c/span\u003e), the instruction was modified to investigate the relationship between the participants and their caregivers before the age of 13. The questionnaire included three subscales, which were used to measure the relationship quality between participant and their fathers, mothers and other major caregivers in their early years. In this study, the Cronbach\u0026rsquo;s alpha coefficient of this three scales were 0.86, 0.84 and 0.79.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec7\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e3.2.2 Friendship Quality Questionnaire-short form\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026ldquo;Friendship Quality Questionnaire-short form\u0026rdquo; compiled by Zou based on Parker and Asher(\u003cspan citationid=\"CR46\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e46\u003c/span\u003e) was used, which consists of 18 items, including six dimensions: validation and care, help and guidance, companionship and recreation, close disclosure and communication, conflict resolution, conflict and betrayal. The Cronbach\u0026rsquo;s alpha coefficient of the scale was 0.89, and the six dimensions\u0026rsquo;were 0.75, 0.78, 0.79, 0.74, 0.74, and 0.65.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec8\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e3.2.3 Experiences in Close Relationships-Relationship Structures Questionnaire (ECR-RS)\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eUsing \u0026ldquo;Experiences in Close Relationships-Relationship Structures Questionnaire\u0026rdquo;(\u003cspan citationid=\"CR47\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e47\u003c/span\u003e) revised by Peng in 2020(\u003cspan citationid=\"CR48\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e48\u003c/span\u003e). There are 7 items in the scale, which are divided into two dimensions: attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety. In this study, the Cronbach\u0026rsquo;s alpha coefficient of the scale was 0.74, and the attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety was 0.81 and 0.87.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec9\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e3.2.4 Questionnaire of College Students\u0026rsquo; intimate Relationship Adjustment\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eUsing the \u0026ldquo;Questionnaire of intimate Relationship Adjustment\u0026rdquo; compiled by Liu and her colleagues (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR49\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e49\u003c/span\u003e). This study adopted the main part of this questionnaire, which contains 23 valid items, including four dimensions: intimacy satisfaction, growth cohesion, independence and communication. The Cronbach\u0026rsquo;s alpha coefficient of the four dimensions was 0.91, 0.91, 0.71, 0.79, and the total scale was 0.94\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec10\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e3.2.5 Data analyses\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eAmos 23.0 was used to test the validity of the questionnaire. SPSS 23.0 was used to test the reliability of the questionnaire and make descriptive analysis, difference test and correlation analysis. The PROCESS program developed by Hayes was used to test the mediation model(\u003cspan citationid=\"CR50\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e50\u003c/span\u003e), and the non-parametric percentile Bootstrap method was used to test the significant level of mediation effect.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"4 Results","content":"\u003cp\u003eHarman single-factor test (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR51\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e51\u003c/span\u003e) was used for factor analysis of all items in these questionnaires except Self-compiled Left-behind Experience Questionnaire. The results showed that the variance of the first major factor was 17.71% (less than the critical standard of 40%), and there were 18 factors\u0026rsquo; characteristic roots greater than 1, which indicated that the common method variation of this study did not affect the study validity.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec12\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e4.1 Descriptive statistics and comparison\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003e The results showed that most of the parents in the left-behind families were both out for work (63.76%), the main caregivers during left-behind period were grandparents (39.24%) and mothers (28.93%). The average age of the child when their father was out for work was 4.77\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;4.13 years old, and the average age of the child when their mother was out for work was 4.73\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;4.33 years old. In addition, nearly half of the parents went out when their children were less than 3 years old.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAccording to the data in Table \u003cspan refid=\"Tab1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1.1\u003c/span\u003e, CSWLBE performed significantly worse than CSOLBE in the total score of intimate relationship quality. CSWLBE also showed lower scores in father-child and mother-child relationship in early years. Total score of adolescent friendship quality of CSWLBE were significantly lower than CSOLBE. The score of attachment avoidance of CSWLBE was significantly higher than that of CSOLBE. There was no significant difference in the score of attachment anxiety.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab1\" border=\"1\"\u003e\u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 1.1\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eStatistic results of parent-child relationship quality and adult attachment\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/caption\u003e\u003ccolgroup cols=\"6\"\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c5\" colnum=\"5\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c6\" colnum=\"6\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003evariables\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCSWLBE(\u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;224)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCSOLBE(\u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;175)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eTotal(\u003cem\u003eN\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;399)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003et\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/thead\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eTotal score of intimate relationship quality\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e3.93\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.58\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e4.07\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.57\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e3.99\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.58\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e-2.291\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.022\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003evariables\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCSWLBE(\u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;249)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCSOLBE(\u003cem\u003en\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;248)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eTotal(\u003cem\u003eN\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;497)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003et\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eEarly father-child\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e2.71\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.77\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e3.17\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.80\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e2.90\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.82\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e-7.100\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.000\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eEarly mother-child\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e3.07\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.76\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e3.52\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.66\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e3.26\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.75\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e-7.730\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.000\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eEarly other caregivers-child\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e3.29\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.67\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e3.40\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.53\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e3.32\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.64\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e-1.202\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.230\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eFriendship quality score\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e3.77\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.57\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e3.86\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.52\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e3.81\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;0.55\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e-2.037\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.042\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eAttachment avoidance\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e2.78\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;1.14\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e2.46\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;1.04\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e2.65\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;1.11\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e3.459\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.001\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eAttachment anxiety\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e4.31\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;1.61\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e4.09\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;1.66\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e4.22\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;1.63\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1.607\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.109\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/tbody\u003e\u003c/colgroup\u003e\u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec13\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e4.2 Correlation analysis of early caregiver-child relationship, adolescent friendship quality, adult attachment and intimate relationship quality\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe correlation analysis results were shown in Table \u003cspan refid=\"Tab2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1.2\u003c/span\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn terms of the correlation between early parent-child relationship and adolescent friendship quality, there was a significant low positive correlation between early relationship with father, mother or other caregivers and friendship quality in CSWLBE. However, the friendship quality in adolescence only had a significant low positive correlation with the relationship with other caregivers in the early years\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe correlation between parent-child relationship in the early years and adult attachment showed that CSWLBE had a significant low negative correlation between early father-child relationship and adult attachment anxiety, early mother-child relationship and adult attachment avoidant, and early other caregiver relationship and adult attachment\u0026rsquo;s two dimensions. While there was no significant correlation between early parent-child relationship and adult attachment in CSOLBE.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe correlation between parent-child relationship in the early years and intimate relationship quality in the adulthood showed that CSWLBE only had a significant low positive correlation between early other caregivers-child relationship and intimate relationship quality, while CSOLBE had a significant low positive correlation between early father-child relationship and intimate relationship quality.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe correlation between adolescent friendship quality and adult attachment revealed that the total score of adolescent friendship quality had a significant low negative correlation with attachment avoidance. And in the correlation between adolescent friendship quality and adult intimate relationship quality, the total score of friendship quality had significant low positive correlation with adult intimate relationship quality.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFinally, adult attachment had a significant negative correlation with adult intimate relationship quality, especially for attachment avoidance, the correlation between the two had a significant moderate correlation.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab2\" border=\"1\"\u003e\u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 1.2\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCorrelations of the research variables\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/caption\u003e\u003ccolgroup cols=\"6\"\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c5\" colnum=\"5\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c6\" colnum=\"6\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eVariables\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eFriendship quality\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eAttachment avoidance\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eAttachment anxiety\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eIntimate relationship quality\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/thead\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eEarly father-child\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCSWLBE\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.071\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;.03\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;.136\u003csup\u003e*\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.073\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCSOLBE\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.262\u003csup\u003e**\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;.036\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;.111\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.162\u003csup\u003e*\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eEarly mother-child\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCSWLBE\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.082\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;.137\u003csup\u003e**\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.019\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.034\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCSOLBE\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.291\u003csup\u003e**\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;.118\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;.025\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.069\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eEarly other caregivers-child\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCSWLBE\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.338\u003csup\u003e**\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;.182\u003csup\u003e**\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;.230\u003csup\u003e**\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.291\u003csup\u003e**\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCSOLBE\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.283\u003csup\u003e*\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.044\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;.194\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.135\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eFriendship quality\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCSWLBE\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;.238\u003csup\u003e**\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;.091\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.271\u003csup\u003e**\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCSOLBE\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;.290\u003csup\u003e**\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;.008\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.283\u003csup\u003e**\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eattachment avoidance\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCSWLBE\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.143\u003csup\u003e**\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;.641\u003csup\u003e**\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCSOLBE\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e.068\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;.676\u003csup\u003e**\u003c/sup\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eattachment anxiety\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCSWLBE\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;.271**\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCSOLBE\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u0026nbsp;\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;.233**\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/tbody\u003e\u003c/colgroup\u003e\u003ctfoot\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd colspan=\"6\"\u003eNote: * \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;.05, ** \u003cem\u003ep\u003c/em\u003e\u0026thinsp;\u0026lt;\u0026thinsp;.01\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/tfoot\u003e\u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec14\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e4.3 The chain mediating analysis in CSWLBE\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eAccording to the significant correlation analysis results in CSWLBE, two chain mediation models were established: adolescent friendship quality and attachment avoidance chain mediated the relationship between early other caregiver-child relationship quality and intimate relationship quality; adolescent friendship quality and attachment anxiety chain mediated the relationship between early other caregiver- child relationship quality and intimate relationship quality. Further test of the mediating effect showed that: the indirect effect 2e (0.13), 3e (0.04) and 2f (0.06) were all reached the significant level (the upper and lower bounds of 95% confidence interval did not overlap with 0, s\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eee Table \u003cspan refid=\"Tab3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1.3\u003c/span\u003e), the effect path diagrams were showed in Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e and Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e .\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab3\" border=\"1\"\u003e\u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 1.3\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eDecomposition results of mediation analysis\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/caption\u003e\u003ccolgroup cols=\"6\"\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c5\" colnum=\"5\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c6\" colnum=\"6\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003emodel\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eEffect size\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eBoot se\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colspan=\"2\" nameend=\"c5\" namest=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e95% confidence interval\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e(ab/c)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eUpper\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003elower\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/thead\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eTotal indirect effect: lnd1e\u0026thinsp;+\u0026thinsp;lnd2e\u0026thinsp;+\u0026thinsp;lnd3e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.18\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.07\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.04\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.32\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e64.60%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003elnd1e:other caregiver\u0026rarr;friendship\u0026rarr;intimacy\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.01\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.04\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e-0.06\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.09\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e4.31%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInd2e:other caregiver\u0026rarr;avoidance\u0026rarr;intimacy\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.13\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.05\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.01\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.23\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e44.92%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInd3e:other caregiver\u0026rarr;friendship\u0026rarr;avoidance\u0026rarr;intimacy\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.04\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.02\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.01\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.08\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e15.37%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eTotal indirect effect: lnd1f\u0026thinsp;+\u0026thinsp;lnd2f\u0026thinsp;+\u0026thinsp;lnd3f\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.11\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.05\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.02\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.21\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e39.68%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003elnd1f:other caregiver\u0026rarr;friendship\u0026rarr;intimacy\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.05\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.04\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e-0.03\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.14\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e17.92%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInd2f:other caregiver\u0026rarr;anxiety\u0026rarr;intimacy\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.06\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.03\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.01\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.12\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e20.00%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInd3f:other caregiver\u0026rarr;friendship\u0026rarr;anxiety\u0026rarr;intimacy\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.00\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.01\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e-0.01\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.02\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e1.76%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/tbody\u003e\u003c/colgroup\u003e\u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv id=\"Sec15\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e\u003ch2\u003e4.4 The chain mediating analysis in CSOLBE\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eAccording to the significant correlation analysis results in CSOLBE, four chain mediation models were established (see in Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003e\u0026ndash;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig6\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e7\u003c/span\u003e). As shown in Table\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Tab4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1.4\u003c/span\u003e, further testing of the mediation effect revealed that: in the chain mediation model 3, only the indirect effect 3g(0.03) was significant (the upper and lower bounds of 95% confidence interval did not overlap with 0), the effect path was shown in Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003e; in the chain mediation model 4, the indirect effect 1h(0.03) and 3h(0.04) both reached the significant level (the upper and lower bounds of 95% confidence interval did not overlap with 0), the effect path was shown in Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e5\u003c/span\u003e. As the chain mediating effect of adolescent friendship quality and attachment avoidance was 0.04, which was opposite to the direct effect value \u0026minus;\u0026thinsp;0.02, suggested that adolescent friendship quality and attachment avoidance played a covering effect in the relationship of early mother-child relationship quality on adult intimate relaionship quality. In the chain mediation model 5 and 6, only the indirect effect 1i(0.04) and 1j(0.07) were significant (the upper and lower bounds of 95% confidence interval did not overlap with 0), the effect path were shown in Figs.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig5\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e6\u003c/span\u003e and \u003cspan refid=\"Fig6\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e7\u003c/span\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"gridtable\"\u003e\u003ctable float=\"Yes\" id=\"Tab4\" border=\"1\"\u003e\u003ccaption language=\"En\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionNumber\"\u003eTable 1.4\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"CaptionContent\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eDecomposition results of mediation analysis\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/caption\u003e\u003ccolgroup cols=\"6\"\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"left\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c1\" colnum=\"1\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c2\" colnum=\"2\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c3\" colnum=\"3\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c4\" colnum=\"4\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c5\" colnum=\"5\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv align=\"char\" char=\".\" class=\"colspec\" colname=\"c6\" colnum=\"6\"\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cthead\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003emodel\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c2\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eEffect size\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c3\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eBoot se\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colspan=\"2\" nameend=\"c5\" namest=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e95% confidence interval\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c6\" morerows=\"1\" rowspan=\"2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e(ab/c)\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eUpper\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003cth align=\"left\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003elower\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/th\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/thead\u003e\u003ctbody\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eTotal indirect effect: lnd1g\u0026thinsp;+\u0026thinsp;lnd2g\u0026thinsp;+\u0026thinsp;lnd3g\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.01\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.04\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e-0.07\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.09\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e8.24%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003elnd1g:father\u0026rarr;friendship\u0026rarr;intimacy\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.01\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.01\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e-0.01\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.04\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e12.27%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInd2g:father\u0026rarr;avoidance\u0026rarr;intimacy\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e-0.03\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.03\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e-0.10\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.03\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e-28.66%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInd3g:father\u0026rarr;friendship\u0026rarr;avoidance\u0026rarr;intimacy\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.03\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.01\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.01\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.06\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e24.72%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eTotal indirect effect: lnd1h\u0026thinsp;+\u0026thinsp;lnd2h\u0026thinsp;+\u0026thinsp;lnd3h\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.07\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.04\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e-0.01\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.16\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e437.50%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003elnd1h:mother\u0026rarr;friendship\u0026rarr;intimacy\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.03\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.02\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.00\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.06\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e187.50%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInd2h:mother\u0026rarr;avoidance\u0026rarr;intimacy\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.01\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.04\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e-0.06\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.08\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e62.50%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInd3h:mother\u0026rarr;friendship\u0026rarr;avoidance\u0026rarr;intimacy\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.04\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.02\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.01\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.07\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e250.00%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eTotal indirect effect: lnd1i\u0026thinsp;+\u0026thinsp;lnd2i\u0026thinsp;+\u0026thinsp;lnd3i\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.06\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.02\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.02\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.10\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e49.26%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003elnd1i:father\u0026rarr;friendship\u0026rarr;intimacy\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.04\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.02\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.01\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.09\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e38.12%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInd2i:father\u0026rarr;anxiety\u0026rarr;intimacy\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.01\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.02\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e-0.01\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.05\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e12.36%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInd3i:father\u0026rarr;friendship\u0026rarr;anxiety\u0026rarr;intimacy\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.00\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.00\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e-0.01\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.01\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e-1.23%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eTotal indirect effect: lnd1j\u0026thinsp;+\u0026thinsp;lnd2j\u0026thinsp;+\u0026thinsp;lnd3j\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.07\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.03\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.02\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.13\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e124.83%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003elnd1j:mother\u0026rarr;friendship\u0026rarr;intimacy\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.07\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.02\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.02\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.12\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e116.26%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInd2j:mother\u0026rarr;anxiety\u0026rarr;intimacy\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.01\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.02\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e-0.03\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.04\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e11.01%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003ctr\u003e\u003ctd align=\"left\" colname=\"c1\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eInd3j:mother\u0026rarr;friendship\u0026rarr;anxiety\u0026rarr;intimacy\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c2\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e-0.00\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c3\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.01\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c4\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e-0.01\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c5\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e0.01\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003ctd align=\"char\" char=\".\" colname=\"c6\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e-2.45%\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/td\u003e\u003c/tr\u003e\u003c/tbody\u003e\u003c/colgroup\u003e\u003c/table\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"5 Discussion","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe present study explores the impact of left-behind experience on the quality of intimate relationship among college students. Besides, it aims to verify the applicability of the two attachment theory-based pathways on intimate relationship quality, and the differences among college students with or without left-behind experience.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe findings indicate that left-behind experiences exert a negative influence on early parent-child relationships, adolescent friendship quality, adult attachment and intimate relationships. Additionally, the stability of attachment among CSWLBE and CSOLBE might operate differently, with CSWLBE demonstrating more stability and tendency towards \u0026ldquo;prototype perspective\u0026rdquo;. In contrast, the stability of attachment among CSOLBE aligns more closely to the \u0026ldquo;revisionist perspective\u0026rdquo;.\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAttachment is more stable in CSWLBE, which is consistent with the studies supporting\u0026ldquo;prototype perspective\u0026rdquo;(\u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e19\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR20\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e20\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR52\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e52\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR53\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e53\u003c/span\u003e). The experience of being left behind destroys the quality of early other caregiver-child relationship, therefore affects friendship quality during adolescence. The above process makes adult attachment model more avoidant and then destroys the quality of intimate relationship. However, this contradicts previous research that attachment styles are more likely to change when negative life events occur (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e18\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR54\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e54\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR55\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e55\u003c/span\u003e), which may be due to the fact that children of insecure attachment are more likely to maintain their attachment pattern when at risk (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e42\u003c/span\u003e). Additionally, the chain mediating results revealed that the mediating effect mainly performs through the influence of early relationships with other caregivers, suggesting that when parents are out, other caregivers can replace and play an important role in building attachment relationship. This finding is also aligned with results in previous studies that grandparent can also become important attachment figures (56, 57).\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOn the other hand, the attachment patterns of CSOLBE are inclined to the \"revisionist perspective\". The results of the chain mediating effect in CSOLBE indicated that adult attachment cannot directly mediate the influence of early parent-child relationship on the intimate relationship quality, but adolescent friendship quality has a stronger correction effect on the influencing mechanism of attachment than that of CSWLBE. Although a good early caregiver-child relationship does not directly predict a secure adult attachment, when people experienced good early caregiver-child relationship and good adolescent friendship quality, secure adult attachment are more common, which will then easy to form high-quality intimate relationship. It provides a realistic proof for the claim made by researchers who favor changes in the study of attachment stability, that changes in attachment representations have a potential to compensate, even go beyond early representations. The long-term consequence of this dynamic is that it should become increasingly difficult to predict individuals\u0026rsquo; attachment based on knowledge of their attachment in the past (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR16\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e16\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e19\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"6 Limitations and future research","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis study found that left-behind experience does influence intimate relationship quality of college students, which influencing mechanisms are different among college students with or without left-behind experience. The difference in the intimate relationship quality of the two cohorts is partly because CSWLBE\u0026rsquo;s caregivers were changed to grandparents. However, due to the complexity of family structure in modern society, even in the families of CSOLBE, grandparent also plays an important role. Besides, among CSWLBE, there is a high rate of left-behind children growing up with other parents who are at home. Thus, the relationship with caregiver is complex regardless of whether they are left-behind children or not. In addition, current studies on the impact of multiple attachment figures on social development focus more on mother-child attachment and father-child attachment in childhood or adolescence (\u003cspan additionalcitationids=\"CR59 CR60\" citationid=\"CR58\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e58\u003c/span\u003e\u0026ndash;\u003cspan citationid=\"CR61\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e61\u003c/span\u003e), instead of grandparent-child attachment in adulthood. In the context of Western culture, attention is paid to grandparent support only in high-risk families (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR62\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e62\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR63\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e63\u003c/span\u003e), which is quite different from Chinese social context. Although there are a few studies on adult attachment of left-behind college students in China (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR64\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e64\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR65\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e65\u003c/span\u003e), none of these studies elaborated the influence of different attachment figures on adult attachment. In addition, researchers have not yet unified the influencing forms of different attachment figures, including the \u0026ldquo;dominant hypothesis\u0026rdquo; that mother-child attachment plays a dominant role in children's social development (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR66\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e66\u003c/span\u003e, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR67\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e67\u003c/span\u003e) and the \u0026ldquo;specificity hypothesis\u0026rdquo; that different attachment figures have different effects on different aspects of social development (\u003cspan citationid=\"CR68\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e68\u003c/span\u003e). Therefore, in order to clarify the influence of different caregiver on the quality of intimate relationship, future researches should pay more attention to the structure of different caregivers in the family when collecting data. More research on grandparent rearing will also expand the researches of how multiple attachment figures effect the quality of adult attachment and intimate relationship.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Abbreviations","content":"\u003cdiv class=\"DefinitionList\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"DefinitionListEntry\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"Term\"\u003eCSWLBE\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"Description\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCollege students with left-behind experience\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"DefinitionListEntry\"\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"Term\"\u003eCSOLBE\u003c/div\u003e\u003cdiv class=\"Description\"\u003e\u003cp\u003eCollege students without left-behind experience\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEthics approval and consent to participate\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe studies involving humans were approved by Ethics Committee of Fudan University. The research was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and relevant institutional and national guidelines. The participants provided their written informed consent to participante in this study.Written informed consent was obtained from the individual(s) for the publication of any potentially identifiable images or data included in this article.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eConsent for publication\u003c/strong\u003e\u003cp\u003eNot applicable.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ch2\u003eCompeting interests\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.\u003c/p\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eFunding\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe authors declare that this research received no external funding.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eAuthor Contribution\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eYXJ was responsible for investigation, methodology, and data curation, and drafted the original manuscript. GJ contributed to writing\u0026mdash;review and editing\u0026mdash;and supervised the overall project. WYY conducted formal analysis and provided translation support. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eAcknowledgement\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe authors are grateful for the support of the teachers who help us to collect data from 10 universities in Sichuan, Henan, Anhui, Guangdong and Hunan provinces. And we further extend our deepest appreciation to the participants who shared their experience with us.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eData Availability\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eLyu L, Mei Z, Yan F, Wang X, Duan C. The status of rural children left-behind in China: 2010\u0026ndash;2020. 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Emerg Top Father Attachment. 2014;9\u0026ndash;23. \u003cspan class=\"ExternalRef\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"RefSource\"\u003e10.1080/03004430903414661\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan address=\"10.1080/03004430903414661\" targettype=\"DOI\" class=\"RefTarget\"\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e.\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\u003c/ol\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"bmc-psychology","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"psyo","sideBox":"Learn more about [BMC Psychology](http://bmcpsychology.biomedcentral.com/)","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"","title":"BMC Psychology","twitterHandle":"BMC_series","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"BMC Series","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Left-behind Experience, Intimate relationship Quality, Parent-child Relationship, Friendship Quality, Adult Attachment","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7200178/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-7200178/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003ch2\u003eBackground\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eAttachment theory posits that individuals develop internal working models of attachment through interactions with caregivers during early childhood, which subsequently influence the establishment of later relationships. In the context of social change in China, individuals with left-behind experience undergo prolonged separation from primary caregivers and experience changes in caregiving during critical developmental periods. This unique upbringing raises concerns about the long-term effects of left-behind experiences on adult intimate relationships.This study aims to examine the impact of left-behind experience on the quality of intimate relationships among Chinese college students and to explore the underlying mechanisms from the perspective of attachment theory.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eMethods\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eA total of 609 college students (Mage\u0026thinsp;=\u0026thinsp;20.37\u0026thinsp;\u0026plusmn;\u0026thinsp;2.32 years; 356 with left-behind experience, 253 without left-behind experience) participated in this study. Measures assessed the quality of early parent-child relationships, adolescent friendship quality, adult attachment styles, and the quality of intimate relationships. Data were analyzed to test both direct effects and mediating pathways based on attachment theory.\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eResults\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eLeft-behind experience exerted a negative impact on the quality of early parent-child relationships, adolescent friendship quality, adult attachment styles, and the intimacy quality of college students. Furthermore, based on the attachment theory, the stability of attachment among college students with left-behind experience (CSWLBE) was found to be more stable and aligned with the \"prototype perspective,\" while those without left-behind experience (CSOLBE) was more consistent with the \"revisionist perspective.\"\u003c/p\u003e\u003ch2\u003eConclusion\u003c/h2\u003e\u003cp\u003eLeft-behind experiences during childhood have enduring adverse effects on the development of intimate relationships in adulthood, mediated through attachment-related processes. These findings highlight the necessity of early interventions to support secure attachment formation among left-behind children, which may contribute to improved relational outcomes in later life.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"The influence of left-behind experience on the quality of intimate relationship among Chinese college students: the mediating role of attachment","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2025-09-15 06:22:02","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-7200178/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0},{"type":"reviewersInvited","content":"","date":"2025-09-05T12:01:03+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvited","content":"","date":"2025-08-04T18:13:50+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorAssigned","content":"","date":"2025-07-29T03:36:11+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"checksComplete","content":"","date":"2025-07-29T03:36:00+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"submitted","content":"BMC Psychology","date":"2025-07-24T00:22:17+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"bmc-psychology","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"psyo","sideBox":"Learn more about [BMC Psychology](http://bmcpsychology.biomedcentral.com/)","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"","title":"BMC Psychology","twitterHandle":"BMC_series","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"BMC Series","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"a7fde082-945e-4fe4-b8e4-2723924f1aef","owner":[],"postedDate":"September 15th, 2025","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"under-review","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2025-09-15T06:22:03+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2025-09-15 06:22:02","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-7200178","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-7200178","identity":"rs-7200178","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}