Predictors Of Attachment Security Research Articles

Individual Variation in Attachment Security and Strange Situation Behavior: The Role of Maternal and Infant Temperament

WEBER, RUTH A.; LEVITT, MARY J.; and CLARK, M. CHERIE. Individual Variation in Attachment Security and Strange Situation Behavior: The Role of Maternal and Infant Temperament. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1986, 57, 56-65. Theories of temperament suggest that both maternal and infant temperament might affect a child's mode of interacting not only with the mother but also with unfamiliar adults. 36 mother-infant dyads were videotaped in the Ainsworth Strange Situation when the infants were 13 months old. These tapes were scored for crying intensity and duration, interactive behavior, and attachment classifications. Lerner's Dimensions of Temperament Survey was completed by the mothers for themselves and for their infants. Mothers of attachment Type A infants scored significantly higher on intensity of reaction than did mothers of Type B and C infants, and mothers of Type B3 and C infants scored lower on adaptability to new situations than did mothers of either A or B1 and B2 infants. Maternal adaptability was also a significant predictor of infant crying, suggesting that the mother's own hesitancy in novel situations is transmitted to the infant. Infant temperament, particularly adaptability, was related to the infant's behavior toward the stranger. A summary rating of infant difficulty was correlated with resistance to both the mother and the stranger. The results suggest that various aspects of Strange Situation behavior are related to both maternal and infant temperament, and that maternal temperament is a predictor of attachment security, particularly for Type A mother-avoidant infants.

Mother-Infant Play at Six Months as a Predictor of Attachment Security at Thirteen Months

Links between mother-infant face-to-face at 6 months and infant attachment security at 13 months were studied via discriminant function analysis. Securely attached (B) dyads' pattern differed from anxious-resistant (C) dyads' in having had more instigation of bouts in the first normal play segment of the procedure, less infant distress in the second segment mother unresponsive, but more fussing in the third segment, low-key play. Anxious-avoidant (A) dyads differed from both B and C dyads in having had less positive mutuality and more short bouts in segment 1, but more infant positive affect in segment 3. The major difference between A and C groups was that A infants showed more positive affect in segment 3 than did C infants. The predictions were significant and generally consistent with theory, but not strong.

Maternal and infant temperatment as predictors of attachment security and strange situation behavior

Maternal and infant temperatment as predictors of attachment security and strange situation behavior