Infant-mother Attachment Patterns Research Articles

Nonmaternal care hours and temperament predict infants’ proximity-seeking behavior and attachment subgroups

Using the NICHD Early Childcare dataset (N=1281), this study examined whether infant temperament and the amount of time infants spend in nonmaternal care independently predict (1) the likelihood that they seek comfort from their mother when needed and (2) placement in a particular subgroup of infant-mother attachment patterns. Mothers reported the number of hours their infant spent in nonmaternal care each month and their infant's difficulty adapting to novel stimuli at 6 months. The degree to which 15-month-old infants seek comfort from their mother during reunion episodes in the Strange Situation was observed using two behavioral scales (“proximity seeking” and “contact maintaining”). Their average score forms the outcome variable of “proximity-seeking behavior.” The other outcome variables were the subgroups of infant-mother attachment patterns: two subgroups for insecure babies (resistant and avoidant) and four subgroups for secure babies (B1, B2, B3, and B4). Easy adaptability to novel stimuli and long hours of nonmaternal care independently predicted a low level of proximity-seeking behavior. These predictors also increased the likelihood of an insecure infant being classified as avoidant (vs. resistant). A secure infant with these same predictors was most likely to be classified as B1, followed by B2, and then B3, with B4 being the least likely classification. Although previous studies using the NICHD dataset found that hours of nonmaternal care had no main effect on infants’ attachment security (vs. insecurity), this study demonstrates that hours of nonmaternal care predict the subcategories of infant-mother attachment.

Emotional availability and attachment across generations: variations in patterns associated with infant health risk status

The presence of limits or distortions in the children's communicative behaviours (due to a chronic illness) may interfere with the possibility to build secure attachment relationships. Moreover, the distress that the atypical chronic illness condition brings to family life may interfere the intergenerational transmission of attachment. This study evaluated the associations between maternal attachment representations, emotional availability and mother-child attachment in a clinical and in a comparison group. Forty infants (23 female) in their 14th month of life and their mothers participated in this study, 20 dyads with clinical infants (10 premature infants and 10 infants affected by atopic dermatitis) and 20 full-term and healthy comparison infants. The Adult Attachment Interview, the Emotional Availability Scales (EAS) and the Strange Situation Procedure were used to assess, respectively, the security of mothers' attachment representations, the emotional availability and the quality of mother-child attachment. We found that the two groups (clinical vs. comparison) did not differ with respect to the Adult Attachment Interview and the Emotional Availability Scales measures. A significant difference was found in the distribution of the infant-mother attachment patterns, with a higher incidence of insecure infants in the clinical group. In the typically developing group, more secure maternal attachment representations predicted more emotional availability in mother-infant interactions, which predicted more secure infant-mother attachments. However, we did not find similar support for intergenerational transmission of attachment in the clinical group. We speculate that constant concerns about the child's health condition and communicative difficulties of clinical infants may hamper or even mitigate the intergenerational transmission of attachment.

The Patterns of Infant-Mother Attachment as a Function of Home Environment

The present investigation was undertaken to assess the relationship between home environment and patterns of infant-mother attachment on a sample of 100 infants (12 to 24 months old) and their mothers enrolled from randomly selected urban middle income families of Ludhiana city. Infant-mother attachment was assessed by using Ainsworth Strange Situation Test (Ainsworth 1978). HOME inventory by Caldwell and Bradley (1984) was used to observe the home environment of the infants. The results revealed that all the infants were securely attached to the mother at the time of reunion although majority of them displayed low security of attachment. Infants experiencing low quality home environment but high acceptance of their behavior and more organized physical and temporal environment displayed more secured attachment to their mother than their counterparts having high quality home environment but low acceptance of their behavior and less organized physical and temporal environment. (authors)

Attachment and adolescents’ emotion regulation during a joint problem-solving task with a friend

This study looks at adolescents’ emotion regulation patterns during a joint problem-solving situation with a friend, based on data from a longitudinal study. Specifically concurrent attachment representation, as assessed by the Adult Attachment Interview and earlier infant-father and infant-mother attachment patterns, as assessed by the strange situation procedure are used as predictors. A total of 41 adolescents participated in a complex problem-solving situation with their friends and were videotaped during their work. Emotional expression and cooperative and uncooperative, disruptive behaviour were assessed from the videotapes. Each participant completed an emotion self-rating during the task. The results show that the concordance between the two levels of assessment of emotion relates to attachment representation for the emotions sadness and anger. Depending on the intensity of specific emotions, adolescents with insecure attachment representations showed more disruptive behaviours towards their friend. This was also true for adolescents with insecure infant-father attachment patterns. The findings suggest that attachment organisation in adolescence and infancy influences the balance between autonomous and cooperative problem solving between friends.

Attachment Styles and the "Big Five" Personality Traits: Their Connections with Each Other and with Romantic Relationship Outcomes

Hazan and Shaver have identified three adult attachment styles corresponding to the infant-mother attachment patterns observed by Ainsworth and associates in the first year of life: secure, avoidant, and anxious-ambivalent. These three styles are related to a wide variety of close relationship processes and outcomes. To date, however; little research has focused on relations between attachment styles and major personality constructs. Such re-search can clarify, the nature of attachment styles and ensure that they are not simply redundant with existing constructs. The present research examined associations between attachment measures, relationship quality and outcome measures, and the 'Big Five"personality traits assessed by the NEO Personality Inventory. Attachment styles were related in theoretically predictable ways to the Big Five dimensions and especially to some of their 'facet' subscales but were not simply redundant with them. The NEO scales were generally not as powerful as the attachment style measures in predicting romantic relationship outcomes, probably because of the greater specificity of the attachment measures.

The origins of attachment theory: John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth.

Attachment theory is based on the joint work of John Bowlby (1907-1991) and Mary Salter Ainsworth (1913- ). Its developmental history begins in the 1930s, with Bowlby's growing interest in the link between maternal loss or deprivation and later personality development and with Ainsworth's interest in security theory. Although Bowlby's and Ainsworth's collaboration began in 1950, it entered its most creative phase much later, after Bowlby had formulated an initial blueprint of attachment theory, drawing on ethology, control systems theory, and psychoanalytic thinking, and after Ainsworth had visited Uganda, where she conducted the first empirical study of infantmother attachment patterns. This article summarizes Bowlby's and Ainsworth's separate and joint contributions to attachment theory but also touches on other theorists and researchers whose work influenced them or was influenced by them. The article then highlights some of the major new fronts along which attachment theory is currently advancing. The article ends with some speculations on the future potential of the theory. Attachment theory is the joint work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1991). Drawing on concepts from ethology, cybernetics, information processing, developmental psychology, and psychoanalysis, John Bowlby formulated the basic tenets of the theory. He thereby revolutionized our thinking about a child's tie to the mother and its disruption through separation, deprivation, and bereavement. Mary Ainsworth's innovative methodology not only made it possible to test some of Bowlby's ideas empirically but also helped expand the theory itself and is responsible for some of the new directions it is now taking. Ainsworth contributed the concept of the attachment figure as a secure base from which an infant can explore the world. In addition, she formulated the concept of maternal sensitivity to infant signals and its role in the development of infant-mother attachment patterns. The ideas now guiding attachment theory have a long developmental history. Although Bowlby and Ainsworth worked independently of each other during their early careers, both were influenced by Freud and other psychoanalytic thinkers—directly in Bowlby's case, indirectly in Ainsworth's. In this article, I document the origins of ideas that later became central to attachment theory. I then discuss the subsequent period of theory building and consolidation. Finally, I review some of the new directions in which the theory is currently developing and speculate on its future potential. In taking this retrospective developmental approach to the origins of attachment theory, I am reminded of Freud's (1920/1955) remark:

Maternal Representations of Attachment during Pregnancy Predict the Organization of Infant-Mother Attachment at One Year of Age

While strong retrospective and concurrent associations between maternal and infant patterns of attachment have been noted, this is one of the first reports of a prospective investigation of such associations. The Adult Attachment Interview was administered to 100 mothers expecting their first child, and, at 1-year follow-up, 96 of these were seen with their infants at 12 months in the Strange Situation. Maternal representations of attachment (autonomous vs. dismissing or preoccupied) predicted subsequent infant-mother attachment patterns (secure vs. insecure) 75% of the time. These observed concordances, as well as the discordances, are discussed in terms of the uniquely powerful contribution the Adult Attachment Interview makes to the study of representational and intergenerational influences on the development of the infant-mother attachment.

Classification of Attachment and Its Determinants in Urban Irish Infants

This study (part of the Dublin Child Development Study) had two aims: to establish the distribution of patterns of infant-mother attachment in an urban sample of Irish 18-month-old infants from predominantly working-class families and to examine factors which may influence the classification of attachment. Three main attachment groups were identified: 80% of infants., were classified as secure (B), 15% as insecure-avoidant (A) and 5% as insecure-resistant (C). According to Belsky and Isabella’s (1988) conceptual framework, individual differences in attachment quality are multiply determined by three distal sources of influence: mother characteristics, infant characteristics and social context. Preliminary results indicated that stability in family of origin, emotional stability at 3 weeks, as well as empathy and maternal confidence at 18 months, were significantly related to infant-mother attachment security. There was also some evidence that maternal report of neonatal fussy-difficultness and caretaking problems may be related to subsequent insecure-resistant attachment. In addition, findings suggested a possible link between the supportive role of fathers and infant-mother attachment security.

Maternal sensitivity and patterns of infant-mother attachment.

48 12-month-old infants and their mothers were videotaped in the Ainsworth Strange Situation. Each infant-mother dyad was also filmed for 3 min while the mother completed a questionnaire and the infant was left to explore the room devoid of toys, a situation in which maternal compliance with the request to complete the questionnaire was expected to compete with attentional demands made on her by the infant. Infant-mother attachment was classified as secure, anxious-avoidant, or anxious-resistant on the basis of behavior in the Strange Situation. Assessment of maternal sensitivity during the questionnaire situation included behaviors classified as reflecting appropriate, insufficient, and intrusive responses to infant cues. 3 summary measures of maternal sensitivity, each of which distinguished between mothers of securely and anxiously attached infants in 1-way analysis of variance tests, were entered into a discriminant function analysis. Using the discriminant function coefficients for combining the maternal sensitivity scores, 94% of the infants were correctly classified as securely or anxiously attached on the basis of their mothers' behavior in the questionnaire situation.

Maternal Sensitivity and Patterns of Infant-Mother Attachment

48 12-month-old infants and their mothers were videotaped in the Ainsworth Strange Situation. Each infant-mother dyad was also filmed for 3 min while the mother completed a questionnaire and the infant was left to explore the room devoid of toys, a situation in which maternal compliance with the request to complete the questionnaire was expected to compete with attentional demands made on her by the infant. Infant-mother attachment was classified as secure, anxious-avoidant, or anxious-resistant on the basis of behavior in the Strange Situation. Assessment of maternal sensitivity during the questionnaire situation included behaviors classified as reflecting appropriate, insufficient, and intrusive responses to infant cues. 3 summary measures of maternal sensitivity, each of which distinguished between mothers of securely and anxiously attached infants in 1-way analysis of variance tests, were entered into a discriminant function analysis. Using the discriminant function coefficients for combining the maternal sensitivity scores, 94% of the infants were correctly classified as securely or anxiously attached on the basis of their mothers' behavior in the questionnaire situation.

The relationship of preterm infant-mother attachment to stranger sociability at 3 years

This study tested the relationship between preterm infant-mother attachment patterns and sociability of 3-year-old children with an unfamiliar female adult. The subjects in the study (N=48) were part of a longitudinal investigation of the developmental sequelae of high-risk preterm birth. Results supported the study's major hypotheses that 3-year-olds' behaviors and affective states vary in accordance with the degree of a stranger's intrusiveness, and that security of attachment is related to stranger sociability. However, by age 3, the preterm risk status of these children was not strongly associated with differences in patterns of stranger sociability, nor were there reliable sociability differences between children with anxious-avoidant (“A”) or anxious-resistant (“C”) attachment relationships. In short, this study showed that patterns of children's behavior in the presence of a stranger were associated with their security of attachment as measured in the second year of life. Moreover, it was the quality of attachment—not early risk status—that reliably predicted sociability with a stranger.

Maternal Sensitivity and Newborns' Orientation Responses as Related to Quality of Attachment in Northern Germany

Our longitudinal study was conducted in Bielefeld, North Germany. In our home observations we focused on infant crying and maternal responsiveness, on behaviors relevant to close bodily contact, and on infant responses to brief everyday separations and reunions. All these behaviors were found by Ainsworth et al. (1978) to be closely linked to the development of different patterns of infant-mother attachment. We also used Ainsworth's maternal sensitivity scale to make global ratings of maternal behavior during the infant's first year and correlated these ratings with infant attachment patterns in the Strange Situation. In addition, we tried to ascer-

Maternal Affectionate Behavior and Infant-Mother Attachment Patterns

Four categories of affectionate behavior were identified in the 23 mothers of Ainsworth's longitudinal sample whose infants were observed in the strange situation at age 12 months. Mothers of babies classified as showing pattern A (anxiously attached and avoidant) in terms of their strange situation behavior were found to emphasize kissing proportionally more than the other mothers, and hugging/cuddling proportionally less. This is congruent with the previous finding that such mothers are averse to close bodily contact. Since mothers of pattern-A babies had also been found to be more rejecting, the findings suggest that rejection does not necessarily imply an absence of affectionate behavior but a different mode of expression.

Maternal Affectionate Behavior and Infant-Mother Attachment Patterns

Four categories of affectionate behavior were identified in the 23 mothers of Ainsworth's longitudinal sample whose infants were observed in the strange situation at age 12 months. Mothers of babies classified as showing pattern A (anxiously attached and avoidant) in terms of their strange situation behavior were found to emphasize kissing proportionally more than the other mothers, and hugging/cuddling proportionally less. This is congruent with the previous finding that such mothers are averse to close bodily contact. Since mothers of pattern-A babies had also been found to be more rejecting, the findings suggest that rejection does not necessarily imply an absence of affectionate behavior but a different mode of expression.