Maternal Attachment Avoidance Research Articles

A combination of maternal and paternal features discriminates between children with secure and insecure attachment style

Child-caregiver attachment security has been associated with positive developmental outcomes. However, many aspects related to the parenting environment, besides attachment organization, should be considered in the prediction of offspring’s attachment. We aimed at building an ecological classification model of child attachment based on many variables related to the individual and dyadic features of both parents. Having recruited 150 families, we fed a stepwise logistic regression analysis, aimed at discriminating between secure and insecure child attachment. This contained information regarding parental stress, parental avoidance and anxiety in romantic relationships, quality of the romantic relationship and parental involvement. Paternal responsibility, paternal perception of the quality of the romantic relationship and maternal attachment avoidance were the most discriminative variables in the model (all p<.05). Findings support the importance of not limiting investigations to maternal factors, but rather making the investigation of attachment-related factors broader by assessing maternal, paternal and dyadic features.

Differential effects of maternal- and paternal-adolescent attachments on friendship security and intimacy.

The present study examined the differential contributions of adolescent-reported maternal and paternal attachment anxiety and avoidance on friendship security and intimacy. Participants were 776 Canadian adolescents between the ages of 13 and 19 years (M=15.18, SD=1.58) who provided ratings of their perceived attachment avoidance and anxiety towards their mothers and fathers and responded to measures of friendship security and intimacy. Findings showed that maternal and paternal attachment avoidance and not anxiety negatively predicted friendship security. Moreover, maternal attachment avoidance was negatively associated with friendship intimacy. Multigroup analyses showed that security was negatively predicted by maternal anxious attachment for junior high school boys and girls. Additionally, paternal avoidant attachment was negatively associated with friendship intimacy for junior high school boys and girls. These findings highlight the unique effects associated with maternal and paternal attachment on specific friendship features and underscore the importance of the role of fathers in adolescence.

The Mediating Role of Parental Reflective Functioning in Child Social–emotional Development

Parental attachment and parental reflective functioning (PRF) have been shown to be related to attachment, mentalizing capacities, and psychopathology in children. Studies also suggest that parental insecure attachment is related to lower levels of PRF. However, no study has directly investigated whether PRF dimensions mediate the relationship between parental attachment dimensions and features of social–emotional development other than attachment, mentalizing, and psychopathology. We prospectively investigated whether PRF mediates the relationship between parental attachment dimensions (i.e., levels of attachment avoidance and anxiety) and social–emotional competences and problems, using data from a 1-year longitudinal study of first-time parents and their biological children (N = 106). We found that low PRF as assessed with the Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire at 1-year follow-up, was an intervening variable in the relationship between parental attachment dimensions at time 1 and child social–emotional development at time 2. In particular, maternal attachment avoidance and paternal attachment anxiety were indirectly related to child competences and problems through high levels of prementalizing modes (i.e., attributing malevolent mental states to the child and an inability to enter the child’s internal world). In addition, in mothers only, there was a partial mediation effect of PM in the relation between attachment anxiety and child competences.

Paternal and Maternal Attachment: A Multifaceted Perspective on Adolescents’ Friendship

This study examined the underpinnings of adolescents’ friendship from an attachment perspective, specifically focusing on the role of paternal attachment. In light that individual differences could moderate the association between parental attachment and friendship qualities, adolescent sex and age were also considered. Participants aged 13–19 (N = 776) reported the extent to which they felt anxiously and avoidantly attached to their mother and father. They also reported their perceived relationship with a close friend on three major qualities, including positive qualities, negative interactions, and relative power. Path analysis was first conducted to examine the relative roles of parental attachment and individual differences in predicting friendship qualities. Multi-group analysis was then performed to determine whether maternal and paternal attachment differentially predicted friendship qualities among junior and senior high school boys and girls. Results indicated that maternal attachment avoidance and anxiety were related to friendship qualities among boys. Not only was paternal attachment anxiety positively associated with power issues among junior high school boys, but it was also positively associated with negative interactions among boys and senior high school girls. Neither paternal nor maternal attachment were associated with friendship qualities among junior high school girls. Findings suggest that paternal and maternal attachment underlie friendship qualities in different ways and that fathers assume more than a complementary role in adolescence for both boys and girls.

Maternal adverse childhood experiences, attachment style, and mental health: Pathways of transmission to child behavior problems.

Investigations have found mothers' adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) confer an intergenerational risk to their children's outcomes. However, mechanisms underlying this transmission have only been partially explained by maternal mental health. Adult attachment insecurity has been shown to mediate the association of ACEs and mental health outcomes, yet an extension of this research to children's behavioral problems has not been examined. To examine the cascade from maternal ACEs to risk for child behavioral problems at five years of age, via mothers' attachment insecurity and mental health. Participants in the current study were 1994 mother-child dyads from a prospective longitudinal cohort collected from January 2011 to October 2014. Mothers retrospectively reported their ACEs when children were 36 months of age. When children were 60 months of age, mothers completed measures of their attachment style, depression and anxiety symptoms, and their children's behavior problems. Path analysis demonstrated maternal ACEs were associated with children's internalizing problems indirectly via maternal attachment avoidance, attachment anxiety, and depression symptoms, but not directly (β = .05, 95% CI [-.001, .10]). Maternal ACEs indirectly predicted children's externalizing problems via maternal attachment avoidance, attachment anxiety, and depression. A direct effect was also observed from maternal ACEs to child externalizing problems (β = .06, 95% CI [.01, .11]). Maternal ACEs influenced children's risk for poor behavioral outcomes via direct and indirect intermediary pathways. Addressing maternal insecure attachment style and depression symptoms as intervention targets for mothers with histories of ACEs may help to mitigate the intergenerational transmission of risk.

Maternal attachment avoidance is linked to youth diurnal cortisol slopes in children with asthma

ABSTRACTPrior evidence suggests that an individual’s attachment orientation is linked to the health and health-related biology of his/her romantic relationship partners. The current study examined whether this effect extends to parent–child relationships. Specifically, we investigated the association between maternal attachment anxiety and avoidance and diurnal cortisol of offspring. In a sample of 138 youth with asthma and their primary caregivers, caregivers reported their attachment orientations, and their children (aged 10–17) supplied four saliva samples per day over four days to assess diurnal cortisol patterns. Growth curve analyses revealed no links to caregiver attachment anxiety, but caregiver attachment avoidance was significantly associated with children’s diurnal cortisol slopes, such that greater attachment avoidance predicted flatter diurnal cortisol slopes. Maternal warmth did not mediate this link. These results support the possibility that an individual’s adult attachment orientation may “get under the skin” of family members to influence their health-related biology. Future research should seek to determine the causal direction of this association and mechanisms of this effect.

Attachment and maternal sensitivity in middle childhood

According to theory, maternal sensitivity should be associated with attachment security in middle childhood. We measure two aspects of maternal sensitivity— affective understanding, a component of parental mentalization, and affective synchrony, a component of parental empathy. We tested our hypotheses within a diverse sample of school-aged children (48.6% female, Mage = 10.27, SDage = 1.09) and their mothers ( N = 112 dyads) at baseline and after a standardized laboratory-based stressor in which children worked on unsolvable puzzles while their mothers watched. Results revealed no significant associations at baseline, but lower maternal attachment avoidance and greater child attachment security were associated with greater affective understanding and greater affective synchrony after the stressor task.

Mother–child reminiscing at risk: Maternal attachment, elaboration, and child autobiographical memory specificity

Mother–child reminiscing, the process by which mothers and their children discuss past events and emotional experiences, has been robustly linked with child outcomes, including autobiographical memory. To advance previous work linking elaborative maternal reminiscing with child autobiographical memory specificity, the ability to generate and retrieve specific memories from one’s past, it is essential to make distinctions among aspects of elaboration and to consider how maternal risk factors may influence the reminiscing context. The current study evaluated (a) an interaction between emotional and structural elaboration predicting child autobiographical memory specificity and (b) the potential moderating role of maternal adult attachment. Participants consisted of 95 preschool-aged children and their mothers. The sample was predominantly low income and racially diverse. Dyads completed a reminiscing task that was coded for emotional and structural elaboration. Mothers completed the Experiences in Close Relationships questionnaire (ECR-R) to assess attachment-related avoidance and anxiety, and children completed the Autobiographical Memory Test–Preschool Version (AMT-PV) to assess memory specificity. Results indicated that the association between structural reminiscing and child memory specificity was moderated by emotional elements of reminiscing. At high levels of emotional elaboration, mothers with high levels of structural elaboration had children with more specific memory than mothers with low levels of structural elaboration. Moreover, emotional elaboration (a) predicted less specific child memory without high structural support and (b) negatively predicted child specificity at high levels of maternal attachment avoidance and anxiety, a profile associated with fearful avoidance. Future directions and implications are discussed.

God Representations, Attachment to God, and Satisfaction With Life: A Comparison of Doctrinal and Experiential Representations of God in Christian Young Adults

In this study the authors address the distinction between individuals' doctrinal representations (or “head knowledge”) and experiential representations (or “heart knowledge) of God by identifying different predictor variables and outcomes for each of these types of representations. Self-report ratings were collected from 415 Christian young adults regarding how well trait words described God in two instructional conditions: what they “should believe that God is like” and what they “personally feel that God is like.” Experiential God representations were found to be less positive than doctrinal God representations. Positive doctrinal representations were predicted by Christian orthodoxy and avoidant attachment to God, whereas positive experiential God representations were predicted by each of Christian orthodoxy, religious commitment, and avoidant and anxious attachment to God. Critical doctrinal representations were predicted by anxious attachment to God, whereas critical experiential representations were predicted by both anxious attachment to God and self-esteem. Experiential representations and maternal attachment avoidance, but not attachment to God, predicted unique variance in satisfaction with life. Results affirm the importance of distinguishing between the two types of representations of God and highlight the relationships between attachment, representations of God, and satisfaction with life.

Parental attachment of children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Objective To investigate the features of parental attachment in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder(ADHD).Methods Experience in Close Relationship Scale Revised(ECR-R),Relationship Questionnaire(RQ) and Homemade General Situation Table was conducted among 164 parents of ADHD and 328 parents of normal children.Results The attachment repretation in fathers of children with ADHD showed that autonomous(43.9％ ) was lower than those of the control group (52.4％),dismissing type (41.5％ ) was higher than the normal group (34.1％),preoccupied( 12.2％ ) was higher than those in the control group (8.0％),unresolved type (2.4％) was lower than those of the control group (5.5％),the difference was not statistically significant (P ＞ 0.05 ).The attachment repretation in mothers of children with ADHD showed that autonomous (40.2％) was lower than those of the control group (50.0％),dismissing type (30.5％) belowed the normal group (32.3％),preoccupied type ( 20.7％ ) higher than those in the control group ( 10.4％ ),unresolved type (8.5％) higher than those in the control group (7.3％),the difference was not statistically significant (P ＞0.05).Two groups had no statistical differences in paternal attachment anxiety,paternal attachment avoidance、maternal attachment anxiety and maternal attachment avoidance dimensions ( ( 3.44 + 0.97 ) vs ( 3.37 + 0.82 ),(3.70+0.57)vs(3.72 +0.57),(3.37+0.87) vs(3.36 +0.83),(3.74+0.68)vs(3.64±0.59),allP＞0.05).Conclusion There is no significant differences in the features of parental attachment between children with ADHD and normal children. Key words: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder ; Parents ; Attachment ;

Saving graces: Impact of partner support and maternal attachment on partner attachments in an individualistic and a collectivist context

The current study investigated the relationships between current attachment to mother and attachment to romantic partners, and the role of current partner support and culture as moderators of that relationship. University students who were currently in a romantic relationship were recruited from Hong Kong and USA, and completed measures on attachment styles and partner support. Results showed that maternal attachment anxiety was correlated with romantic attachment anxiety; maternal attachment avoidance was correlated with romantic attachment avoidance, but this linkage varied by level of current partner support. Romantic attachment avoidance was also associated with current partner support, but this linkage was stronger for HK Chinese than for Americans. These results are discussed in terms of how interpersonal and personality factors promoted by culture can affect the developmental course of romantic relationships.