Social information processing in middle childhood: Relations to infant-mother attachment

Abstract

This longitudinal study was designed to examine the links between infant-mother attachment and social information processing in middle childhood. The Strange Situation was used to assess infant-mother attachment at 12 months and a revised and adapted Hebrew version of the Social Information Processing Interview (Dodge & Price, 1994) was used to measure social information processing in middle childhood (at 7.5 years). Findings revealed that with regard to both peer-group relationships and mother-child relationships, secure children demonstrated more competent social information processing than insecure-ambivalent children in one out of four social information processing stages. The major characteristic distinguishing secure from insecure-ambivalent children's social information processing was their level of expectations from others: secure children expected others to be emotionally and instrumentally available to them (but in the case of peers — only if their own behavior was socially acceptable), whereas ambivalent children did not expect others to be available to them in both peer-group and mother-child circumstances.