Disorganized attachment in adolescence: Emotional and physiological dysregulation during the Friends and Family Interview and a conflict interaction.

Alessandro Decarli,Blaise Pierrehumbert,André Schulz,Violetta Katharina Schaan,Claus Vögele

doi:10.1017/s0954579420001352

Abstract

The current study examined the effects of attachment on autonomy, relatedness, and emotion regulation during an attachment interview (Friends and Family Interview; FFI) and a Parent×Child Conflict interaction (Family Interaction Task; FIT) in 49 adolescents (11 to 17 years old). Disorganized adolescents displayed behaviors promoting autonomy and relatedness less frequently and at a lower extent than organized ones in the FIT with mothers but not with fathers. Disorganized adolescents also showed a steeper decrease in heart rate variability (HRV) than organized ones, during both the FFI and the FITs. Moreover, disorganized adolescents responded with a more marked increase in skin conductance level to the FIT with mothers than organized individuals. Dismissing adolescents showed behaviors promoting autonomy and relatedness less frequently and to a lesser extent than secure ones, while displaying more often behaviors undermining autonomy and relatedness in the FITs. Dismissing adolescents also showed a more pronounced decrease in HRV during the FFI than secure and preoccupied individuals; no differences were found between these groups in HRV during the FITs. The results suggest that disorganized adolescents had more difficulties in regulating their emotions during both the FFI and the FITs, whereas dismissing individuals seemed effectively challenged only during the interview.

Highlights

Adolescence is often seen as a sensitive developmental period, as a lot of changes occur at biological, cognitive, affective, and social levels (Moretti & Peled, 2004)
Heart rate is often measured in terms of inter-beat intervals (IBI), indicating the time between two heart beats, while heart rate variability (HRV) represents IBI variations over time, which can be expressed in terms of the root mean of squared successive differences (RMSSD) (Berntson, Quigley, & Lozano, 2007)
H1.1, H1.2: Differences between secure, dismissing, preoccupied, and disorganized adolescents Concerning the interactions with mothers, the overall effect with a three-way attachment classification (S, Ds, P) was significant, F(8, 84) = 4.28, p

Summary

Introduction

Adolescence is often seen as a sensitive developmental period, as a lot of changes occur at biological, cognitive, affective, and social levels (Moretti & Peled, 2004). Results from psychophysiological studies suggest that this suppression strategy is only partially effective in that it is only overt behavior that is suppressed, but autonomic arousal is high (Dozier & Kobak, 1992; Roisman, Tsai, & Chiang, 2004; Spangler & Zimmermann, 1999) This strategy can be maladaptive in social contexts or in interactions with significant others, for example in a situation where they need to discuss a disagreement and find a constructive solution with their parents (Beijersbergen, Bakermans-Kranenburg, van IJzendoorn, & Juffer, 2008; Cassidy & Kobak, 1988; Hesse, 2016). These indicators may interact but are not interchangeable and, might not show the same results or activation when used in the same context (e.g., Beijersbergen et al, 2008; Roisman et al, 2004)

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