Effects of Middle School Students’ Perceived Paternal and Maternal Attachment on Career Maturity: A Moderated Mediation Model of Grit and Parental Monitoring

This study examined how paternal and maternal attachment, grit, and parental monitoring relate to middle school students’ career maturity. It also tested grit’s mediating effect and parental monitoring’s moderated mediation effect on the relationship between parental attachment and career maturity. For this purpose, data from 1,293 14-year-old middle school students were drawn from the 15th wave of the Panel Study on Korean Children (PSKC) conducted by the Korea Institute of Child Care and Education. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, path analysis, and bootstrapping with SPSS version 29.0 and AMOS version 29.0. The results showed that parental attachment significantly influenced middle school students’ career maturity. Specifically, maternal attachment had a positive effect on both career maturity and grit. Furthermore, grit partially mediated the relationship between maternal attachment and career maturity. Parental monitoring moderated the relationship between maternal attachment and grit, thereby strengthening grit’s mediating effect, indicating a moderated mediation effect. This study identifies key psychosocial factors influencing career maturity in adolescence and offers implications for policy development and counseling interventions to support career development, particularly for adolescents with limited emotional resources.