Does attachment security predict children’s thinking-about-thinking and thinking-about-feeling? A meta-analytic review

Abstract

Previous research presents no clear picture of the association between caregiver–child attachment and the two hallmarks of children’s mentalizing abilities: false-belief understanding (FBU) and emotion understanding (EU). The present meta-analytic study investigated four questions: (a) what is the pooled correlation between attachment and children’s mentalizing abilities, as indicated by FBU and EU?; (b) are there differences in the magnitude of correlations between attachment and FBU on the one hand, and attachment and EU on the other hand?; (c) does children’s verbal ability mediate the relation between attachment and children’s FBU and EU?; (d) is the relation between attachment and children’s mentalization moderated by the attachment assessment approach (behavioral vs. representational) and/or instrument? A total of 64 effect sizes (N = 1734 children) were subjected to multilevel analyses. The results showed that the association between attachment and EU, r = 0.31, was significantly larger than the association between attachment and FBU, r = 19. Language ability partially mediated the association between attachment and FBU, but not attachment and EU. Studies using behavioral measures of attachment reported lower correlations compared to studies using representational measures. The findings suggest that the association between attachment and FBU is indirect, and that methodological differences between the different attachment measures may partially explain the significant relations between attachment and children’s mentalizing abilities.