Parents' Socioemotional Investment in Children

Abstract

ROBERT H. BRADLEY, LEANNE WHITESIDE-MANSELL, AND JUDITH A. BRISBY University of Arkansas at Little Rock BETTYE M. CALDWELL University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences* Parental Investment in Children (PIC) is a 24item questionnaire designed to assess parents' socioemotional investment in their children. PIC is composed of four scales: Acceptance of the Parenting Role, Delight, Knowledge/Sensitivity, and Separation Anxiety. Assessment of this type of investment is important because there is limited research on the parent's side of the attachment system and because the attitudes and behaviors that represent parental investment may be central targets of parental education and guidance programs. This study evaluates the reliability and validity of PIC in a sample of 137 mothers of 15month-old children. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that the four scales were internally consistent. Results also indicated from moderate to high test-retest reliability and substantial evidence of construct validity. For purposes of this study, PIC scores were related to scores on the quality of caregiving, social support, the quality of marital relationships, maternal depression, neuroticism, and agreeableness, maternal separation anxiety, parenting stress, and child difficulty. Key Words: attachment, bonding, confirmatory factor analysis, home environment, parenting, separation anxiety. During the past quarter century there has been an increasing appreciation of the organization of the attachment system in relation to the attachment figure (i.e., children are believed to develop an internal working model of attachment with cognitive as well as emotional components) and the transmission of these internal working models from generation to generation (Lebovici, 1993). Children construct a working model of their relationship with caregivers based on exchanges with those caregivers over an extended period of time. Particularly important for the development of a child's internal model of attachment is the availability and responsiveness of the caregiver, especially during times of distress. Children who receive sensitive caregiving are believed to construct an internal representation of the caregiver as warm and responsive and of themselves as worthy of love and support, a secure attachment. According to attachment theory, such children accordingly feel comfortable to explore and usefully exploit their environments, an adaptive developmental outcome (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978; Bowlby, 1969; Bretherton, 1985). At times of distress, a child with a secure attachment will seek comfort from the caregiver. Once comfort is given, distress is relieved, and the child becomes active again in exploring the environment. By contrast, children with insecure attachments see themselves as unworthy and their caregivers as unpredictable. Research demonstrates that a child's internal working model, though open to change based on new experiences, plays an instrumental role in a wide variety of behavioral domains (Booth, Rose-Krasnegor, McKinnon, & Rubin, 1994; Sroufe, 1985; Teti & Abelard, 1985). Although Bowlby's (1969) ethological theory of attachment makes clear that attachment is a relational process in which both caregiver and child endeavor to maintain proximity and closeness, the focus of most attachment research and most attachment measures has been on the child's side of the relationship. This disparity of focus arises because of the postulated centrality of attachment security for children's development (Bretherton, 1985). The quality of a child's attachment appears closely tied to the caregiver's own personal developmental history and the attitudes and expectations derived from that history. Specifically, there is evidence indicating that children's attachment classifications can be predicted from their caregivers' own recollections about experiences with their own caregivers (i. …