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Results for “Object Attachment”

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PubMed1989

A case study of qualitative versus quantitative reviews: the maternal-infant bonding controversy.

This study used meta-analysis methodology to examine a series of studies in maternal-infant attachment. The results of this quantitative analysis were compared with those of a classic qualitative analysis of the same subject. The advantages and disadvantages of both quantitative and qualitative approaches to literature reviews are discussed and compared with quantitative and qualitative analyses of individual research studies.

Female↗

PubMed1997

Children's representations of attachment relationships in family drawings.

Children's representational models of self and attachment figures were investigated in family drawings at age 8-9 in a high-risk, racially mixed sample. Drawings were scored using a series of specific signs and a group of theoretically derived, global rating scales. When specific signs were treated in a combined way (versus separately), they were significantly related to early attachment history in predicted ways. Similarly, specific rating scales were found to be significantly related to early relationship history. Analyses exploring the relative contributions of early attachment history and contemporary measures of child IQ, life stress, and emotional functioning revealed that even after contemporary influences were taken into account, attachment history made a significant contribution to the prediction of negative drawing outcome. Results were interpreted as supporting an organizational perspective on development where qualitative differences in early relationships are hypothesized to shape core representational models of the self and to exert an ongoing influence on later representational processes.

Art↗

PubMed2005

Attachment, loss, and complicated grief.

Bereavement is a highly disruptive experience that is usually followed by a painful but time-limited period of acute grief. An unfortunate minority of individuals experience prolonged and impairing complicated grief, an identifiable syndrome that differs from usual grief, major depression, and other DSM IV diagnostic entities. Underlying processes guiding symptoms are not well understood for either usual or complicated grief. We propose a provisional model of bereavement, guided by Myron Hofer's question "What exactly is lost when a loved one dies?" We integrate insights about biobehavioral regulation from Hofer's animal studies of infant separation, research on adult human attachment, and new ideas from bereavement research. In this model, death of an attachment figure produces a state of traumatic loss and symptoms of acute grief. These symptoms usually resolve following revision of the internalized representation of the deceased to incorporate the reality of the death. Failure to accomplish this integration results in the syndrome of complicated grief.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Differential effects of person in the dog and in the human.

People have marked effects on dog's heart rate, with great individual variations for different persons. Apparently people to which the dog is attached have the greatest effect upon heart rate. Replications of the animal experiments using the psychotherapist and two other people revealed no effects upon the heart rate of a schizophrenic human. In the human the effects of people are probably best demonstrated in connection with verbal communication.

Animals↗

PubMed2003

Grief and its impact on prenatal attachment in the subsequent pregnancy.

This article suggests there is a need to reframe the phenomenon of unresolved grief in parents who are in a subsequent pregnancy after a previous loss using a prenatal attachment model. An argument is made for helping parents give meaning to their parenting role for the baby who has died so they can move forward in attaching to the baby in the next pregnancy. It is suggested that a new layer of grief surfaces when parents get pregnant again which can lead to pathology if not recognized by others. Interventions to support the parenting relationship to the baby in the subsequent pregnancy are provided.

Attitude to Death↗

PubMed1987

Swedish high-risk study: sample characteristics at age 6.

High-risk offspring of women with a history of nonorganic psychosis and control offspring of women with no history of psychosis were studied from the mother's pregnancy through 2 years of age and followed up at 6 years of age. The mothers tended to be older and have somewhat higher parity than did Swedish mothers in general. Sample attrition during the 6-year longitudinal period was significantly higher in the high-risk than the control sample, and selective in both groups. A limited set of early-life variables, investigated prospectively, was selected for studying the antecedents of mental disturbance in the offspring at 6 years. In the high-risk group, disturbance in the offspring was related to maternal anxiety during pregnancy, negative maternal attitude toward pregnancy, and maternal psychotic condition during the period from 6 months to 2 years post-partum, and tended to be related to low social class, male child, active maternal-mental disturbance during pregnancy, prolonged labor and low Apgar score at delivery, neonatal neurological abnormality, and anxious attachment to the mother at 1 year of age. None of these relationships (except low social class) appeared in the control group, and no significant antecedents of mental disturbance in control offspring were found among the limited set of variables studied in these analyses.

Bipolar Disorder↗

PubMed2005

Generalized and specific attachment representations: unique and interactive roles in predicting conflict behaviors in close relationships.

The authors expected that associations between the representations individuals possess regarding romantic partners and their conflict behavior would be moderated by generalized attachment representations (GAR). To test this premise, college students (N =130) were administered two attachment measures and were observed during conflict negotiation with their partners. The Relationship Styles Questionnaire assessed specific representations regarding partners and GAR were measured by the Adult Attachment Interview. The relationship between romantic partner representations and conflict tactics were dependent on GAR. Individuals who possessed secure GAR generally displayed good conflict management skills, regardless of their attachment representations regarding their romantic partners. Individuals who held more anxious or avoidant perceptions of romantic partners displayed more problematic conflict tactics if they possessed insecure GAR; however, these associations were dependent on the type of conflict behavior and the type of insecure GAR. Implications for future research are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed2002

The etiology of personality function: the University of British Columbia Twin Project.

The UBC Twin Project is an on-going study of personality and personality disorder that has collected personality data on approximately 1000 adult volunteer twin pairs. The primary purpose of the study is to develop and validate measures of the major forms of personality disorder as a quantitative alternative to the classificatory system first proposed by the DSM-III using the standard methods of personality and behavioural genetics research. To date, the study has explored the univariate and multivariate relationships between the major personality and personality disorder inventories, and their relationships to other psychopathologies including the mood and anxiety disorders and key psychological variables, such as cognitive ability, attachment and attitudes. The results have several implications for personality and personality disorders, most notably a rationalized diagnostic/nosological system to enhanced measurement instruments that index and reflect the influence of specific genetic and environmental influences.

Adult↗

PubMed1991

[Maternal representations during pregnancy and early mother-infant interactions].

In this paper we aim to explore how maternal representations during pregnancy influence the early mother-infant interactions and the style of attachment of the baby. Two different cases are presented in order to focus on how maternal representations of herself as a mother and of the future baby influence the early interactions and the style of attachment of the children. It is stressed in one case the particular fixity of the maternal phantasmatic world and in the other the modifiability which can be influenced, in the latter case, by the conscious fantasies and the relationship with her own family and her own child.

Adult↗

PubMed1998

Social competence, social support, and attachment: demarcation of construct domains, measurement, and paths of influence for preschool children attending Head Start.

Two studies designed to (1) explore measurement issues for the construct domains of social competence and social support and (2) test a model relating social competence to social support and to child-parent attachment for low-income (primarily African American) preschool children attending Head Start are reported. In Study 1, the definition, measurement, and structure of the social competence construct are evaluated in 2 samples of children. For Study 1A, 167 4-year-old children were assessed with a battery of observation, interview, and Q-sort measures. Relations among the measures suggested a hierarchical structure that was tested using a structural equation model. Results from the analysis supported the conjecture that social competence should be viewed as a hierarchically organized construct. In Study 1B, the model was tested again for a group of 3- and 4-year-old children (n = 265), using a modified set of measures. The general structure of the model from Study 1A was reproduced in this independent sample, although paths from the second-order factor to lower-order factors were not perfectly coordinated across samples. In Study 2, data for a subset of the children in Study 1B (n = 182), gathered with respect to features of their social networks, were examined to assess the structure of their social support networks. Descriptive and structural equation analyses are reported. Sixty-nine of these children were observed at home with their mothers and described using the Waters Attachment Q-sort. A structural equation model testing relations consistent with causal pathways from attachment security to both social support networks and to social competence and from the social support network variable to social competence with peers fit these data with a high degree of confidence. Subsequent analyses locating social competence as antecedent to attachment security were not significant. We conclude that the construct domains of social competence and social support networks can be meaningfully measured for preschool children and that individual differences with respect to these construct domains are related to child-parent relationship qualities.

Child Development↗

PubMed1985

Inversion of parent-child relationships: a contribution to attachment theory.

Bowlby describes premature parental behaviour in children when discussing the inversion of parent-child relationships. Normal parental behaviour in children is discussed. Pathological parental behaviour in children is viewed as basically elicited by the weak, infantile aspects of parents. A case history is presented. Premature parental behaviour is viewed as one of several binding mechanisms which may keep a child tied to his/her family of origin.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Adolescent attachment styles and their relation to the temperament and character traits of personality in a general population.

Attachment styles as well as personality traits in adolescents and adults have been found to be associated with their health outcomes and with their personality pathology. In this cross-sectional exploratory study, we study the relationship between attachment styles that derive from our data employing the items of Feeney et al. (1994) self-report attachment style questionnaire (ASQ), and personality traits given by the junior version of Cloninger et al. (1993) self-report temperament and character inventory (TCI), in a sample of 426 adolescents (54% females) from a general population. The secure attachment style was correlated significantly negatively with the personality trait harm avoidance (HA), but significantly positively with the personality traits novelty seeking (NS), reward dependence (RD), cooperativeness (CO) and self-transcendence (ST). The preoccupied (anxious/ambivalent) attachment style was correlated significantly positively with HA and NS, but significantly negatively with self-directedness (SD). The fearful-avoidant category was correlated significantly negatively with NS. Our five-factor solution of the attachment styles and their relation to the TCI point towards a need for a modification of the two-axis, four-category attachment model of Bartholomew (1990) and Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991), with their category dismissing-avoidant replaced by the two categories defined here as dismissing relations (correlated significantly negatively with CO) and dismissing others (correlated significantly negatively with RD and significantly positively with SD).

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

Reflections on 'an attachment-based treatment of maltreated children and young people'.

This paper considers the work of a skilled clinician (see this volume) who uses attachment theory but also his own vast body of experience. Many of the ideas will be of considerable help particularly to those working with children in substitute families. Caution is needed, however, as this work often involves the uncovering of unexpected abuse experiences which can provoke intense reactions. Training and supervision would seem essential.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2001

Insecure attachment and alexithymia in young men with mood symptoms.

According to attachment theorists, affect regulation and quality of attachment are closely linked. As a personality trait associated with deficits in the cognitive processing and regulation of affects, alexithymia has been hypothesized to correlate with insecure attachment. To test this hypothesis, we studied the relationships between alexithymia, adult attachment style, and retrospective memories of separation anxiety symptoms during childhood in 100 young men with clinically significant mood symptoms. The most common DSM-IV diagnosis (N = 72) was adjustment disorder with depressed mood, with anxiety, or with mixed anxiety and depressed mood. Each participant completed the Twenty-Item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the state form of the State-Trait Anxiety Index (STAI), the Attachment Style Questionnaire (ASQ), the Relationship Questionnaire (RQ), and the Separation Anxiety Symptom Inventory (SASI). Alexithymic traits were more pronounced in those participants who had patterns of insecure attachment and who reported more severe symptoms of separation anxiety during childhood, independently of the severity of their current anxiety and depressive symptoms. Among the subgroup of participants with insecure attachment styles, those with preoccupied or fearful patterns had a higher prevalence of alexithymia (65% and 73%, respectively) than those with a dismissing pattern (36%). These data suggest a role for early developmental factors in the etiology of alexithymia

Adult↗

PubMed1984

The relation between maternal employment status and the stability of attachments to mother and to father.

Recent investigations of the relation between maternal employment and the stability of infant attachments have implied that maternal employment introduces a stressful, unpredictable element into family life. To assess the effect of maternal employment per se, stable and changing maternal employment status were distinguished in this study. Classifications of the quality of infant-mother and of infant-father attachments were made for 59 children at 12 and 20 months of age using the Ainsworth strange situation paradigm. The stability of attachments from 12 to 20 months was examined in 4 groups defined by maternal employment status. 3 of these groups (nonemployed, part-time employed, full-time employed) were characterized by no change in maternal employment status from several months prior to the first assessment of attachment through the 20-month assessment; the fourth group was characterized by maternal employment status that changed between the 2 assessments of attachment. Among the stable conditions of maternal employment status there was no indication of differences in the stability of attachment to either parent whether the mother was employed or not, indicating that maternal employment can lend as much stability to family relationships as the condition of maternal nonemployment. No changes in the quality of attachment to mother and relatively frequent changes in attachment to father (46%) were present when mother changed employment status. The basis for this difference is discussed in terms of maternal versus paternal response to alterations in life-style initiated by mother's employment changes.

Adult↗

PubMed1996

Behavioral inhibition and stress reactivity: the moderating role of attachment security.

The role of the mother-toddler attachment relationship in moderating the relations between behavioral inhibition and changes in salivary cortisol levels in response to novel events was examined in 77 18-month-olds. Behavioral inhibition was determined by observing toddler inhibition of approach to several novel events. Attachment security to mother was assessed using the Ainsworth Strange Situation. Changes in salivary cortisol were used to index activity of the stress-sensitive hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) system. In addition, toddler coping behaviors and the behaviors used by mothers to help toddlers manage novel events were examined. Elevations in cortisol were found only for inhibited toddlers in insecure attachment relationships. Mothers in these relationships appeared to interfere with their toddlers' coping efforts. These results are discussed in the context of a coping model of the relations between temperament and stress reactivity.

Adaptation, Psychological↗

PubMed1996

Stress reactivity and attachment security.

Seventy-three 18-month-olds were tested in the Ainsworth Strange Situation. These children were a subset of 83 infants tested at 2, 4, 6, and 15 months during their well-baby examinations with inoculations. Salivary cortisol, behavioral distress, and maternal responsiveness measures obtained during these clinic visits were examined in relation to attachment classifications. In addition, parental report measures of the children's social fearfulness in the 2nd year of life were used to classify the children into high-fearful versus average- to low-fearful groups. In the 2nd year, the combination of high fearfulness and insecure versus secure attachment was associated with higher cortisol responses to both the clinic exam-inoculation situation and the Strange Situation. Thus, attachment security moderates the physiological consequences of fearful, inhibited temperament. Regarding the 2-, 4-, and 6-month data, later attachment security was related to greater maternal responsiveness and lower cortisol baselines. Neither cortisol nor behavioral reactivity to the inoculations predicted later attachment classifications. There was some suggestion, however, that at their 2-month checkup, infants who would later be classified as insecurely attached exhibited larger dissociations between the magnitude of their behavioral and hormonal response to the inoculations. Greater differences between internal (hormonal) and external (crying) responses were also negatively correlated with maternal responsiveness and positively correlated with pretest cortisol levels during these early months of life.

Crying↗

PubMed2006

Racism: processes of detachment, dehumanization, and hatred.

The author looks at definitions of racism from the viewpoints of various theoretical frameworks, addressing the role of projection and other phenomena. Racism is then examined according to principles of psychoanalytic relational theory, attachment theory, and radical group analytic theory. Power relationships, the psychosocial process, a sense of us versus them, and the universal importance of a feeling of belonging are also taken into consideration. In examining the meaning of race, the author addresses the notions of black and white and their evolution over time, as well as the phenomenon of othering.

Dehumanization↗