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PubMed2002

Infant-mother attachment security, contextual risk, and early development: a moderational analysis.

In light of evidence that the effects of attachment security on subsequent development may be contingent on the social context in which the child continues to develop, we examined the effect of attachment security at age 15 months, cumulative contextual risk from 1 to 36 months, and the interaction of attachment and cumulative risk to predict socioemotional and cognitive linguistic functioning at age 3 years, using data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care. Results indicated that early attachment predicts both socioemotional development and language skills, but not cognitive functioning as indexed by a measure of school readiness, and that the effect of attachment on socioemotional development and expressive language varied as a function of social-contextual risk. Insecure-avoidant infants proved most vulnerable to contextual risk, not children classified as secure or insecure more generally, although in one instance security did prove protective with respect to the adverse effects of cumulative contextual risk. Findings are discussed in terms of risk and resilience and in light of the probabilistic nature of the relation between early attachment and later development.

Affective Symptoms↗
PubMed2003

Child-parent attachment following early institutional deprivation.

Child-parent attachment quality with an adoptive caregiver at age 4 years was examined in a sample of 111 children adopted into the United Kingdom following early severe deprivation in Romania and a comparison group of 52 nondeprived within-United Kingdom adoptees. Findings indicated that, compared with nondeprived adoptees, children who experienced early severe deprivation were less likely to be securely attached and more likely to show atypical patterns of attachment behavior; ordinary forms of insecure attachment were not associated with deprivation. Within the sample of deprived adoptees, there was a dose-response association between duration of deprivation and disturbances in attachment behavior. In addition, a minority of children who experienced severe early deprivation were classified as avoidant, secure, or dependent using conventional classification strategies, despite also exhibiting atypical patterns of attachment behaviors, and this was also more likely among children exposed to prolonged deprivation. The results raise both theoretical and methodological implications for attachment research on very deprived children.

Adoption↗
PubMed2003

Atypical maternal behavior, maternal representations, and infant disorganized attachment.

The data for 197 mother-infant pairs from two longitudinal studies were analyzed to assess relations between maternal attachment representations; atypical maternal behavior, coded with a new tool. Atypical Maternal Behavior Instrument for Assessment and Classification (AMBIANCE), and infant attachment. Both maternal and infant attachment were systematically related to atypical maternal behavior: mothers who were Unresolved on the Adult Attachment Interview and those whose infants were disorganized in the Strange Situation Procedure engaged in more atypical behaviors than those who were not Unresolved and whose infants showed organized patterns of attachment, respectively. Regression analyses indicated that when tested as a mediator, atypical maternal behavior as measured on the AMBIANCE did not reduce the association between maternal Unresolved status and infant disorganized attachment. This may, in part, reflect the fact that our low-risk sample did not include enough cases in the risk categories. These data provide preliminary empirical validation for the AMBIANCE and strengthen the evidence for links between atypical maternal behavior and disorganized attachment but indicate that in addition to maternal attachment representations, other factors must contribute to atypical maternal behavior.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Fostering secure attachment in infants in maltreating families through preventive interventions.

The malleability of insecure and disorganized attachment among infants from maltreating families was investigated through a randomized preventive intervention trial. Findings from research on the effects of maltreatment on infant attachment were incorporated into the design and evaluation of the intervention. One-year-old infants from maltreating families (N = 137) and their mothers were randomly assigned to one of three intervention conditions: (a) infant-parent psychotherapy (IPP), (b) psychoeducational parenting intervention (PPI), and (c) community standard (CS) controls. A fourth group of infants from nonmaltreating families (N = 52) and their mothers served as an additional low-income normative comparison (NC) group. At baseline, mothers in the maltreatment group, relative to the nonmaltreatment group mothers, reported greater abuse and neglect in their own childhoods, more insecure relationships with their own mothers, more maladaptive parenting attitudes, more parenting stress, and lower family support, and they were observed to evince lower maternal sensitivity. Infants in the maltreatment groups had significantly higher rates of disorganized attachment than infants in the NC group. At postintervention follow-up at age 26 months, children in the IPP and PPI groups demonstrated substantial increases in secure attachment, whereas increases in secure attachment were not found for the CS and NC groups. Moreover, disorganized attachment continued to predominate in the CS group. These results were maintained when intent to treat analyses were conducted. The findings are discussed in terms of the utility of translating basic research into the design and evaluation of clinical trials, as well as the importance of preventive interventions for altering attachment organization and promoting an adaptive developmental course for infants in maltreating families.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1997

Multiple pathways to conscience for children with different temperaments: from toddlerhood to age 5.

This research extends longitudinally findings on child temperament as a moderator of the impact of socialization on conscience development, reported previously for contemporaneous data at toddler age. Children's temperament and maternal socialization at Time 1 (n = 103, aged 2-3 years) were considered predictors of future conscience, assessed using new observational and narrative measures. The moderation model was supported for predicting conscience at Time 2 (n = 99, age 4), and, to a lesser extent, at Time 3 (n = 90, age 5). For children fearful as toddlers, maternal gentle discipline, presumably capitalizing on the optimal level of anxious arousal, promoted conscience at Time 2. For children fearless as toddlers, perhaps insufficiently aroused by gentle discipline, alternative socialization mechanisms, presumably capitalizing on mother-child positive orientation (secure attachment, maternal responsiveness), promoted conscience at Times 2 and 3. Developmental interplay of temperament and socialization in emerging morality is discussed.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1994

Perceptions of parental and peer attachments by women with mood disorders.

The relationship between perceptions of parental and peer attachments at various ages and adult mood disorders was examined in 156 women classified as having bipolar disorder or unipolar depression or as nonpsychiatric controls. Nonpsychiatric controls reported a decreased attachment to their parents over time, but they also reported an increased closeness to their mothers in adulthood following a distant adolescence. Never hospitalized, moderately depressed subjects showed a similar trend toward decreased relatedness, but moderately depressed subjects did not report reestablishment of a close relationship with their mothers after adolescence. Severely depressed and bipolar subjects reported little attachment to their mother at all ages. Bipolar subjects also reported little connectedness to their fathers throughout their lifespan and severely depressed women felt less attached than nonpsychiatric controls to peers during development. None of the psychiatric groups reported difficulties with parental overcontrol.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Resolving attachment injuries in couples using emotionally focused therapy: steps toward forgiveness and reconciliation.

The goal of this study was to use task analysis to verify that the attachment injury resolution model described in this article discriminates resolved from nonresolved couples. Twenty-four couples with an attachment injury received, on average, 13 sessions of emotionally focused therapy (EFT). At the end of treatment, 15 of the 24 couples were identified as resolved. Segments of best sessions for all couples were transcribed and rated on 2 process measures. Resolved couples were found to be significantly more affiliative and achieved deeper levels of experiencing than nonresolved couples. They also showed significant improvements in dyadic satisfaction and forgiveness than nonresolved couples. The results support the attachment injury resolution model and suggest that resolution during EFT is beneficial to couples.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2000

Acquisition of the algorithms of social life: a domain-based approach.

Proposing that the algorithms of social life are acquired as a domain-based process, the author offers distinctions between social domains preparing the individual for proximity-maintenance within a protective relationship (attachment domain), use and recognition of social dominance (hierarchical power domain), identification and maintenance of the lines dividing "us" and "them" (coalitional group domain), negotiation of matched benefits with functional equals (reciprocity domain), and selection and protection of access to sexual partners (mating domain). Flexibility in the implementation of domains occurs at 3 different levels: versatility at a bioecological level, variations in the cognitive representation of individual experience, and cultural and individual variations in the explicit management of social life. Empirical evidence for domain specificity was strongest for the attachment domain; supportive evidence was also found for the distinctiveness of the 4 other domains. Implications are considered at theoretical and applied levels.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2001

The neurobiology of attachment.

It is difficult to think of any behavioural process that is more intrinsically important to us than attachment. Feeding, sleeping and locomotion are all necessary for survival, but humans are, as Baruch Spinoza famously noted, "a social animal" and it is our social attachments that we live for. Over the past decade, studies in a range of vertebrates, including humans, have begun to address the neural basis of attachment at a molecular, cellular and systems level. This review describes some of the important insights from this work.

Animals↗
PubMed2006

Somatoform disorders as disorders of affect regulation: a development perspective.

This paper considers the role of disturbances in affect regulation in the development and course of somatoform disorders. We first give an overview of contemporary theories in the field of psychosomatic medicine that links deficits in emotion regulation to the process of somatization, and then review recent empirical research that focuses on the association between affect regulation and somatoform disorders, with an emphasis on studies investigating the alexithymia construct. Overall, the findings suggest that somatoform disorders are linked to a diminished capacity to consciously experience and differentiate affects and express them in an adequate or healthy way. It must be noted, however, that this result has not been obtained exclusively for somatoform disorders. A promising approach to further our understanding of the developmental roots of impaired affect regulation in somatoform disorders is attachment research. The attachment research reviewed in this paper indicates that a dismissing status of attachment is linked to defensive forms of processing and expressing emotions. We present some new data that not only provide empirical support of a high proportion of dismissing attachment in somatoform disorders but also suggest that the degree to which somatoform disorder patients employ dismissing attachment strategies is strongly related to affect dysregulation. Finally, some implications for psychotherapeutic interventions in patients with somatoform disorders are considered.

Affective Symptoms↗
PubMed2005

Predictors of young adults' representations of and behavior in their current romantic relationship: prospective tests of the prototype hypothesis.

Although attachment theory suggests that childhood experiences with caregivers serve as a prototype for adult love relationships, few explicit tests of this hypothesis exist in the literature. Drawing on data from a longitudinal cohort followed from birth to young adulthood, this paper examined correlates and antecedents of young adults' representations of and behavior in their current romantic relationship. Young adults who experienced a secure relationship with their primary caregiver in infancy as assessed in the Strange Situation were more likely to (a) produce coherent discourse regarding their current romantic partnership in the context of the Current Relationship Interview (CRI) and (b) have a higher quality romantic relationship as observed in standard conflict and collaboration tasks. Infant security accounted for variation in CRI security above and beyond the observed quality of participants' current romantic relationship. In contrast, the association between infant and romantic security was partially mediated by individuals' self-reports about their romantic experiences, suggesting that one plausible mechanism by which early experiences with caregivers shape young adults' representations of their attachments with romantic partners is through adults' expectations for and perceptions of love relationships.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Attachment and substance use disorders: a review of the literature and a study in drug dependent adolescents.

Earlier studies on attachment and substance use disorders using the Hazan and Shaver (1987) self-report mainly indicate a link with "avoidant" attachment styles. Studies working with the Adult Attachment Interview (Main & Goldwyn, 1998) have produced inconsistent results. The present study used the Bartholomew (1990) interview coding system to assess attachment in a sample of 71 German opiate using, drug dependent adolescents (DDAs, age 14 - 25) and 39 non-clinical controls. Fearful attachment was predominant in DDAs, while controls were predominantly secure. Severity of drug use, as assessed with the European Addiction Severity Index (Gsellhofer, Fahrner, & Platt, 1994) and urinalyses, was positively correlated with fearful attachment, but negatively correlated with dismissing attachment. The presence of comorbid psychiatric disorders was associated with fearful attachment but not with addiction severity.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1999

The development of attachment in separated and divorced families. Effects of overnight visitation, parent and couple variables.

This study represents the first systematic investigation of the effects on infant attachment to mother and to father of the increasingly common practice of overnight visitation (time-sharing) with the father in separated and divorced families. There were 145 infants (ages 12 to 20 months) and their mothers (and 83 fathers) who participated in the study. Parents completed questionnaires, were interviewed about their relationship with the baby, and were observed with their infants in the Strange Situation. Infants in separated/divorced families who had regular overnight visits with father (n = 44) were significantly less likely to be classified as secure and more likely to be classified as disorganized or unclassifiable in their attachment to mother than infants in a married comparison group (n = 52). Attachment classification to father was unrelated to visiting (time-sharing) arrangements, but infants were significantly more likely to be classified disorganized/unclassifiable with father in the separated/divorced groups (n = 39) than in dual-parent families (n = 44). Disorganized attachment to mother in the Overnight group was associated with maternal reports of low parent communication and high parent conflict, and with low maternal psychological protection of the infant, assessed from maternal interviews. Consistent with Bowlby's and Rutter's context-sensitive views of the effects of separation, the results suggest that repeated overnight separations from the primary caregiver are associated with disruption in mother-infant attachment when the conditions of visitation are poor, i.e. when parents are unable to provide adequate psychological support to the child.

Child Custody↗
PubMed2005

Attachment and individuation of deaf/hard-of-hearing and hearing young adults.

This study examined differences between deaf/hard-of-hearing (D/HH) and hearing persons with regard to two interrelated and continuous developmental processes: attachment (Bowlby, 1969) and individuation (Mahler, 1963). The study also examined intergroup differences in two personal variables assumed to be influenced by these processes: self-esteem and well-being. Participants comprised 38 D/HH and 42 hearing persons aged 18 to 35 years from middle and upper-middle socioeconomic classes. All the D/HH participants had graduated from mainstreamed educational programs. Findings showed that D/HH participants expressed more fear of attachment and more fear of individuation than did hearing participants. D/HH participants also revealed a lower self-esteem and lower level of well-being compared to hearing participants. Higher fear of attachment correlated with lower levels of self-esteem and well-being. Results supported the theorized relationships between attachment and individuation processes and between these two processes and personality characteristics such as self-esteem and well-being.

Adolescent↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Parental sensitivity, infant affect, and affect regulation: predictors of later attachment.

This longitudinal study on 94 families examined the extent to which parent sensitivity, infant affect, and affect regulation at 4 months predicted mother-infant and father-infant attachment classifications at 1 year. Parent sensitivity was rated from face-to-face interaction episodes; infant affect and regulatory behaviors were rated from mother-infant and father-infant still-face episodes at 4 months. Infants' attachment to mothers and fathers was rated from the Strange Situation at 12 and 13 months. MANOVAs indicated that 4-month parent and infant factors were associated with infant-mother but not infant-father attachment groups. Discriminant Function Analysis further indicated that two functions, "Affect Regulation" and "Maternal Sensitivity," discriminated infant-mother attachment groups; As and B1-B2s showed more affect regulation toward mothers and fathers than B3-B4s and Cs at 4 months, and mothers of both secure groups were more sensitive than mothers of Cs. Finally, the association between maternal sensitivity and infant-mother attachment was partially mediated by infant affect regulation.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Shedding further light on the effects of various types and quality of early child care on infant-mother attachment relationship: the Haifa Study of Early Child Care.

The Haifa Study of Early Child Care recruited a large-scale sample (N = 758) that represented the full SES spectrum in Israel, to examine the unique contribution of various child-care-related correlates to infant attachment. After controlling for other potential contributing variables--including mother characteristics, mother-child interaction, mother-father relationship, infant characteristics and development, and the environment--this study found that center-care, in and of itself, adversely increased the likelihood of infants developing insecure attachment to their mothers as compared with infants who were either in maternal care, individual nonparental care with a relative, individual nonparental care with a paid caregiver, or family day-care. The results suggest that it is the poor quality of center-care and the high infant-caregiver ratio that accounted for this increased level of attachment insecurity among center-care infants.

Child Day Care Centers↗
PubMed1993

Disorganized infant attachment classification and maternal psychosocial problems as predictors of hostile-aggressive behavior in the preschool classroom.

This study of 62 low-income families examined the relation between maternal and infant measures assessed at 18 months infant age and child behavior problems at age 5 as rated by preschool teachers. The infancy assessments included measures of mother-infant interaction, maternal psychosocial problems, infant cognitive development, and infant attachment security, including the disorganized/disoriented classification. The strongest single predictor of deviant levels of hostile behavior toward peers in the classroom was earlier disorganized/disoriented attachment status, with 71% of hostile preschoolers classified as disorganized in their attachment relationships in infancy. Maternal psychosocial problems independently predicted hostile aggression in preschool and combined additively with infant attachment security in prediction. Results are discussed in relation to the asymmetry of forward and backward prediction that characterized the findings and in relation to the potential significance of disorganized attachment behavior as a precursor to later maladaptation.

Aggression↗