Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Codependent Attitude And Behavior: Moderators Of Psychological Distress In Adult-Offspring Of Families With Alcohol And Other Drug (Aod) Problems, Daniel Harkness, Shawna Manhire, Jennifer Blanchard, Jennifer Darling

Daniel Harkness

This study explored a model of codependent attitude and behavior as moderators of the relationship between AOD problems in the family of origin (AODF) and offspring self-reports of psychological distress in a counterbalanced multiple-treatment experiment with a small heterogeneous sample of adult males and females. Three-directional hypotheses suggested by the literature were tested. Codependent attitude and behavior buffered Somatization, as predicted by the model, but exacerbated Anxiety, Hostility, and Paranoid-Ideation. Our findings suggest that codependent attitude and behavior may be adaptations that protect AODF offspring from somatic distress, not the broadband expressions of offspring neuroticism reported in the literature. Owing …