Development of Empathy in Girls During the Second Year of Life: Associations with Parenting, Attachment, and Temperament

The development, antecedents, and concomitants of empathic concern in the second year of life were examined. Associations with parental sensitivity, children's fearfulness and attachment security were investigated. At 16 and at 22 months, 125 firstborn girls from middle‐class families were observed in their homes and in the laboratory. Empathic concern was assessed from the girls’ responses to simulated distress in their mothers and in an unfamiliar person. Temperamental fearfulness was observed when they were confronted with potentially scary items. Attachment security was assessed with the Strange Situation procedure, and parental sensitivity was measured in problem‐solving situations both at home and in the lab. From 16 to 22 months, empathic concern for the mother's distress increased, whereas empathy for the stranger decreased. A more fearful temperament and less attachment security predicted less empathic concern for the stranger's distress. Antecedent and concurrent measures of parenting showed disappointingly weak associations with empathic concern. Empathy for strangers in distress requires the regulation of negative emotions for which fearful and insecurely attached girls seem to be less well equipped.     

Security of Attachment as a Predictor of Symbolic and Mentalising Abilities: A Longitudinal Study

The development of symbolic and mentalising abilities was examined in 33 children whose security of attachment had been assessed in infancy. It was found that securely attached children: (i) were better able to incorporate an experimenter's play suggestions into their sequences of symbolic play at 31 months; and (ii) performed better on a version of Wimmer and Perner's (1983) unexpected transfer task at age 4. There was also evidence of superior mentalising abilities among the secure group at age 5, despite no group differences being found in general cognitive ability. We suggest that these security-related differences might be related to mothers' propensity to treat their securely attached children as individuals with minds. In support of this hypothesis, mothers in the secure group adopted more sensitive tutoring strategies, and were more likely to describe their children in terms of their mental characteristics. Possible developmental pathways linking security of attachment in infancy with subsequent development were investigated using path analyses.     

The Uniqueness of the Child–Father Attachment Relationship: Fathers' Sensitive and Challenging Play as a Pivotal Variable in a 16-year Longitudinal Study

This longitudinal study of forty‐four families explored fathers’ as compared to mothers’ specific contribution to their children's attachment representation at ages 6, 10, and 16 years. In toddlerhood, fathers’ and mothers’ play sensitivity was evaluated with a new assessment, the sensitive and challenging interactive play scale (SCIP). Fathers’ SCIP scores were predicted by fathers’ caregiving quality during the first year, were highly consistent across 4 years, and were closely linked to the fathers’ own internal working model of attachment. Qualities of attachment as assessed in the Strange Situation to both parents were antecedents for children's attachment security in the Separation Anxiety Test at age 6. Fathers’ play sensitivity and infant–mother quality of attachment predicted children's internal working model of attachment at age 10, but not vice versa. Dimensions of adolescents’ attachment representations were predicted by fathers’ play sensitivity only. The results confirmed our main assumption that fathers’ play sensitivity is a better predictor of the child's long‐term attachment representation than the early infant–father security of attachment. The ecological validity of measuring fathers’ sensitive and challenging interactive play behavior as compared to infant proximity seeking in times of distress is highlighted. Findings are discussed with respect to a wider view on attachment in that both parents shape their children's psychological security but each in his or her unique way.     

Attachment network structure as a predictor of romantic attachment formation and insecurity

We present a new framework to conceptualize normative variation in attachment network structure and use the framework to predict romantic attachment formation and attachment insecurity. Young adults (N = 2,055) completed the Attachment Network Questionnaire and were classified into one of four network types based on two comparisons: (a) between their primary and secondary figure, and (b) between their secondary and tertiary figure. Each comparison was coded as Similar (S) or Different (D), resulting in the following distribution across four network types: (a) 40% D:D—diversified; (b) 32% D:S—monotropic; (c) 19% S:D—joint principal; and (d) 9% S:S—distributed. Romantic duration predicted a developmental sequence of network structure consistent with infant attachment formation. Findings also indicated that the nonhierarchical network, distributed type, was associated with insecure attachment representations. Results suggest that attachment networks exhibit greater structural diversity than is commonly assumed and that the new framework is useful for understanding developmental and social outcomes.     

Emotion Socialization as a Framework for Understanding the Development of Disorganized Attachment

Recent years have seen the emergence of accounts of the origins of the Disorganized attachment relationship in early mother–infant interaction, each building on the pioneering work of Main and Hesse—dysfunctional emotional processes figure prominently in all these accounts. This paper applies a framework based on two complementary theories of emotion socialization, Gianino and Tronick's (1992 ) Mutual Regulation Model and Gergely and Watson's (1996 ) Social Biofeedback Theory, to suggest an emotion‐based mechanism consistent with recently proposed models of the development of Disorganized attachment. The framework is used to generate hypothetical accounts of the role of dysfunctional emotional processes and maladaptive emotion socialization in early mother–infant interaction in the development of Disorganized attachment along two distinct pathways, one associated with actual abuse of the infant and the other associated with maternal unresolved trauma.     

Attention and Executive Functions as Mediators of Attachment and Behavior Problems

The purpose of this study was to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the relation between early parent‐child interactions and subsequent behavior problems and how certain cognitive processes mediate this relation. Specifically, this study investigated whether attention, inhibition, and planning skills mediate the relation between attachment security and behavior problems. Data were collected as part of the National Institute of Child Health and Development‐Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development when children (N = 1004) were between 36 months and the third grade. Results from structural equation models indicated that sustained attention mediated the relation between disorganized attachment and social problems. Planning mediated the relation between disorganized attachment and subsequent thought problems, attention problems, and delinquent behavior. Avoidant, ambivalent, and disorganized attachment directly predicted several behavior problems. Implications for theory and future research are discussed.     

A Review of Adult Attachment Measures: Implications for Theory and Research

There has been increasing interest in adult attachment from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. Because the test of a theory is based on our ability to assess theoretical constructs, the review is organized around assessment techniques. Delineating the content, focus, assumptions, and correlates of different attachment measures highlights central issues and problems in conducting research in adult attachment. In this review, we present theoretical issues related to adult attachment, in particular, individual differences, working models, and the role of attachment in adult life. A summary of the measures commonly used in the study of adult attachment follows. The literature review is organized by measure, examining topics such as relations between childhood experiences and adult attachment status, and adult attachment and adult personality and functioning, parenting and partnership behavior. Studies which explore relations between measures are discussed before concluding with thoughts about future directions.     

Secure Body Attachment and the Prevention of Eating Disorders: A Case Application

Drawing on attachment theory, the author explores the particular physical presence of the body as a significant aspect of the attachment relationship between two people, most notably between two females (the mother and the daughter). Recognizing the nature of one’s body attachment as a protective and a risk factor provides a greater understanding of the potential for resilience, as well as the presence of vulnerability in relationship to one’s body. Through a case application, the author argues that without a model of secure attachment to the body, a female is more likely to develop an attachment to cultural ideals as an extension of primary relationships and at the expense of her own body, moving her from exposure to action in the form of an eating disorder.     

Broadening the Study of Infant Security of Attachment: Maternal Autonomy‐support in the Context of Infant Exploration

Although security of attachment is conceptualised as a balance between infants' attachment and exploratory behaviours, parental behaviours pertaining to infant exploration have received relatively little empirical attention. Drawing from self‐determination theory, this study seeks to improve the prediction of infant attachment by assessing maternal autonomy‐support during infant exploration, in addition to maternal sensitivity. Seventy‐one dyads participated in two home visits. Maternal sensitivity was assessed when the infants were 12 months old, whereas maternal autonomy‐support and infant attachment were assessed at 15 months. The results revealed that autonomy‐support explained an additional portion of the variance in attachment when maternal socioeconomic status and sensitivity were controlled. These results speak to the relevance of a theory‐driven approach to examining maternal behaviours in the context of child exploration.     

Couple interaction and child social competence: The role of parenting and attachment

The current study examined the association between positive couple interaction and child social competence as mediated through positive parenting and parent–child attachment security. Prospective, longitudinal data came from 209 mothers, fathers, and their biological child. Information regarding observed positive couple interaction, observed positive parenting, and parent–child attachment security were assessed when the child was 2–4 years old, and child social competence was assessed at 5 years old. Mothers and fathers were analyzed separately in the model. Results indicated that for both mothers and fathers, positive couple interaction was indirectly associated with child social competence through positive parenting and parent–child attachment. These pathways remained statistically significant even after child social competence at age 2–4 was taken into account. Results suggest that couple interaction spills over into parenting which impacts parent–child attachment, which is associated with positive child developmental outcomes.     

Attachment Representations and Discipline in Mothers of Young School Children: An Observation Study

Previous research was extended by connecting maternal attachment representations not only to maternal emotional support and task structuring, but also to maternal discipline. A total number of 62 mothers of preschoolers (M_age = 54 months) completed the adult attachment interview and a self‐report measure of dysfunctional discipline. Two years later, a subsample of 38 mother–child dyads was observed during two laboratory interaction tasks in which the mother and child were induced to have divergent goals. In general, the hypothesized connections between maternal attachment representations and discipline were found, at least when discipline was independently observed. Specifically, as compared to autonomous mothers, non‐autonomous mothers showed more overreactivity, more psychological control and less flexibility in their discipline attempts. Also, their children were less compliant. These differences were more pronounced during a story‐eliciting task than during a block task. These findings suggest that parental behaviors in the discipline domain contribute to the explanation of the intergenerational transmission of attachment patterns.     

Patterns of Attachment and Maternal Discourse Effects on Children's Emotion Understanding From 3 to 5 Years of Age

Two studies examined the influence of maternal discourse style and security of attachment, and their interaction, on preschoolers’ emotion understanding. The first, with 3‐year‐olds, unexpectedly found no significant prediction of emotion understanding from attachment and discourse, and the interaction of the predictors yielded theoretically unpredicted associations with emotion understanding. Consequently, measures of attachment and emotion understanding were obtained again on these children at age 5 in a second study. At this age, consistent with expectations, secure attachment predicted higher emotion understanding, especially in the context of maternal use of elaborative discourse from the earlier assessment. The findings suggest that during the period of significant representational advance between ages 3 and 5, the influence of maternal discourse and attachment security are developmentally transformed as children's conceptions of psychological states rapidly change. By age 5, however, maternal elaborative discourse in the context of attachment security fosters deeper emotion understanding in preschoolers.     

Mothers' Self-Reported Control of Their Preschool Children's Emotional Expressiveness: A Longitudinal Study of Associations with Infant–Mother Attachment and Children's Emotion Regulation

In the present longitudinal study we examined the associations between mothers’ self‐reported control of their preschoolers’ emotional expressiveness and two other key facets of early socioemotional development: the quality of the infant–mother attachment and children's emotion regulation. Seventy‐six white preschool‐aged children (46 boys and 30 girls) and their mothers participated. Principal assessments included the Parent Attitude Toward Child Expressiveness Scale (PACES; Saarni, 1985 ), the infant Strange Situation, and ‘Beat the Bell,’ a measure designed for this study to elicit children's emotional expression, sharing, and suppression in the presence of their mothers. Mothers’ control of their children's expressiveness was associated with both attachment and children's emotion regulation in theoretically predicted ways. First, mothers of children who had been classified insecure‐avoidant in the Strange Situation reported greater control of their children's negative expressiveness than other mothers, and mothers of children who had been classified insecure‐ambivalent reported less control of their children's negative expressiveness than other mothers. Second, mothers who reported greater control of their children's expressiveness had children who were less likely to express and share their feelings and more likely to suppress their anger in the ‘Beat the Bell’ emotion regulation assessment. Findings are discussed in terms of the role of maternal emotion socialization in children's early socioemotional development.     

Grief as an Emotion and as a Disease: A Social-Constructionist Perspective

This paper examines grief as an emotion and contrasts it with an alternative conception of grief as a disease. Emotions and (to a lesser extent) diseases are constituted, in part, through their relation to social systems. Recently, there has been a trend toward "treating" grief within the health care system. As this trend continues, grief will inevitably accrue some of the aspects of a disease, and it will lose some of its meaning as an emotion. The theoretical and social implications of this shift in meaning are explored.     

Biases in Attention for Social Stimuli in Children are Associated with Patterns of Infant Attachment: A Brief Report

The way an individual attends to social information has implications for his/her ability to regulate behavior in social settings. The results of the present investigation suggest that early experiences in parent–child relationships contribute to later differences in the deployment of attention to social information. The quality of the mother–child relationship was assessed at one‐year‐of‐age. At seven to eight years of age, a dot‐probe paradigm assessed immediate and delayed attention to pictures of faces vs. pictures of neutral objects. Children who were more avoidant with their mother in infancy attended to neutral objects over social stimuli at delayed but not immediate time frames. This finding suggests that individual differences in attention to social stimuli in childhood are associated with the quality of the prior attachment relationship with a primary caregiver.     

Maternal and Child Anxiety: Do Attachment Beliefs or Children's Perceptions of Maternal Control Mediate Their Association?

This study tested a model of the association between maternal and child anxiety that views mother and child attachment beliefs and children's perceptions of maternal control as mediators of the association. The study was conducted with mothers and their children aged 6 to 17 (N = 88). Maternal anxiety was significantly associated with child anxiety and maternal anxious attachment beliefs, whereas child anxiety was associated with maternal anxious attachment beliefs, child insecure attachment beliefs, and children's perceptions of maternal control. Maternal anxious attachment beliefs mediated the association between maternal and child anxiety; however, child attachment beliefs and children's perceptions of maternal control did not. The influence of age and gender is also addressed. The findings are discussed in terms of elucidating the role of attachment beliefs and children's perceptions of maternal control on the association between maternal and child anxiety.     

A Longitudinal Study of Mother-Child Relationships and Theory of Mind in the Preschool Period

To investigate individual differences in theory of mind acquisition, this study examined whether different aspects of early mother-child relationships contributed to the development of false belief understanding at the close of the preschool period. Forty-six mother and child pairs were seen when children were two and again at five years of age. At age two, home-based Q-sort observations of attachment security and maternal sensitivity were made, and mothers completed a number of self-report measures to create an aggregate of maternal emotional distress. At age five, attachment security and maternal distress were reassessed, and false belief tasks were administered that were based on unexpected identities and locations of objects. In addition, attachment-relevant false belief tasks involving separation from caregivers were also used, which children found significantly more difficult than tasks involving objects. Age five security predicted object location task performance. Maternal sensitivity and emotional distress at age two predicted later caregiver location task performance, even controlling for age five measures. These results support a growing literature on the importance of relationship processes and parenting context to theory of mind acquisition.     

Attachment and Coping Strategies in Middle Childhood Children whose Mothers Have a Mental Health Problem: Implications for Social Work Practice

Mental health has implications for the quality of relationshipswithin a family, particularly between parents and children,but also between other family and non-family members. Previousresearch has investigated parental reports of attachment infamilies with mental health problems, but relationship representationsas experienced by these children, especially in middle childhood,have not been so frequently investigated. An understanding ofchildren’s representations of attachment relationshipsand the different coping strategies that may result is importantfor social work practice when offering support, not only tothe children, but also other family members. Methods of investigatingattachment, such as the Separation Anxiety Test, have been usedto understand the relationship issues, fears and coping strategiesof other vulnerable children, and this study was designed specificallyto investigate relationship issues in middle childhood childrenwhose mothers had previously been hospitalized with mental healthproblems. We found that these children tended to be less emotionallyopen and secure, and generated fewer adaptive coping strategiesthan children whose mothers had never had mental health problems.Other themes also emerged from the interviews, such as a senseof trust in the parent–child relationship and the ‘containment’of fears. Implications for social work practice are discussed.     

Impacts of child development accounts on parenting practices: evidence from a randomised statewide experiment

ABSTRACT

This study examines the impact of Child Development Accounts (CDAs) on parenting practices of mothers with young children in a statewide randomised experiment conducted in the United States. The experiment included 2704 primary caregivers of children born in Oklahoma during 2007: 1358 were randomly assigned to the treatment group and 1346 to the control group. Structural equation modelling suggests that the punitive-parenting score among treatment participants was .12 standard deviations smaller than that among control participants (p < . 05). Findings indicate that CDAs reduce punitive parenting, and may serve as an additional tool for positive parent–child interactions.