Community Attachment and Depression Among Residents in Two Rural Midwestern Communities1

Abstract The relationship between community attachment and depression is examined in a sample survey (N = 295) in two midwestern rural towns and their surrounding open-country areas. When community attachment, a variable through which a rural resident's social integration into the local community affects mental health, was low, higher levels of symptoms of depression were observed. The economic viability of the local community was found to have a relationship to mean depression scores in the towns but not in the open-country areas.     

Examining the Effects of Community Satisfaction and Attachment on Individual Well‐Being*

Abstract Using data collected in a general population survey from a random sample of individuals in four communities in Pennsylvania, I examine the effects of community satisfaction and attachment on self‐assessed individual well‐being. I find substantial support for the hypothesis that satisfaction with the community and attachment to the community are associated independently and positively with individual well‐being. Bivariate and multiple correlation/regression analyses reveal that greater community satisfaction and attachment result in higher levels of perceived well‐being. Although the total explained variances of the community satisfaction and attachment measures are small, they do not differ substantially from various social and demographic factors that have been found to be associated with well‐being. I propose possible implications of these findings and make suggestions for future research.     

A Dynamic‐Maturational Model of Attachment

This article provides an overview of an attachment‐based approach to formulation of behavioural and psychiatric disorder. The dynamic‐maturational model (DMM) of attachment places many such problems within a context of family‐attachment relationships. In the DMM, neurological maturation interacting with experience is central to the self‐protective strategies that individuals develop to regulate familial attachments. When the relationships fail to protect child (or parent), more extreme strategies are organised to wrest some measure of safety and comfort from an otherwise threatening environment. A wide range of such strategies is described. It is argued that recognising attachment strategies in patients is crucial to providing helpful treatment (and to reducing the risk of inappropriate treatment).     

Dimensions of Community Attachment and Their Relationship to Well‐Being in the Amenity‐Rich Rural West*

Abstract This research had two primary objectives: 1) to broaden the sociological construct of community attachment to incorporate both social and natural environment dimensions of attachment, and 2) to examine how variations in attachment relate to two dimensions of well‐being in natural amenity‐rich rural communities. The specific dimensions of well‐being measured are two important factors identified in previous research—collective action and perceptions of open communication. Factor analysis of fourteen measures of attachment indicated social attachment and attachment to the natural environment are distinct dimensions of the broader concept of community attachment. Participation in collective action and perceptions of open communication within a respondent's community explained only a small portion of the variance in levels of both social and natural environment attachment. Religious affiliation and length of residence were strongly associated with social attachment, supporting findings from previous empirical work. However, length of residence and religious affiliation were not statistically associated with levels of attachment to the natural environment, further reinforcing the distinction between the two dimensions of attachment.     

Attachment Relationships and the Career Exploration Process

This article examines the role of parent—adolescent attachment relationships in the career exploration process. We propose that college students who report secure attachment relationships with their parents would engage in greater environmental and self-exploration, as well as greater nontraditionality of exploration, as measured by the degree of gender traditionality of their primary occupational preference. One hundred and thirty-seven undergraduates (50 men, 87 women) completed measures of parent attachment, career exploration, and a demographic form. The results of a canonical correlation analysis indicated that attachment to parents associated positively with environmental exploration. However, the results indicated that parental attachment was not associated with traditionality of exploration. An examination of relevant demographic variables suggested that age played a significant role, whereas gender did not. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications of these findings for career theory and practice.     

Visual Access and Attention in Two‐Year‐Olds' Event Reasoning and Object Search

Several recent studies have revealed substantial limitations in 2‐year‐olds' ability to search accurately for objects that have undergone unseen movement, even along highly constrained paths. In many of these studies, children observed a ball as it rolled down a track and behind an occluding panel that contained 4 doors. The track had a barrier that was partly visible and could be placed in locations corresponding to the doors. When the ball came to a rest against the barrier and behind the occluder, the child's task was to find the ball by opening the correct door. The search accuracy of 2‐year‐olds has not differed from chance across several variations of this task. This research was conducted to identify the source of 2‐year‐olds' limitation in this domain. Children were granted a full view of the event before the ball was occluded with a door panel. Children's performance was better under this condition, but was still not systematically accurate unless their gaze remained locked onto the correct location. Two‐year‐olds' weak performance in these search tasks appears to be more a consequence of limitations in spatial integration than in their representation of unseen movement.     

Mind‐Mindedness as a Multidimensional Construct: Appropriate and Nonattuned Mind‐Related Comments Independently Predict Infant–Mother Attachment in a Socially Diverse Sample

In a socially diverse sample of 206 infant–mother pairs, we investigated predictors of infants’ attachment security at 15 months, with a particular emphasis on mothers’ tendency to comment appropriately or in a non‐attuned manner on their 8‐month‐olds’ internal states (so‐called mind‐mindedness). Multinomial logistic regression analyses showed that higher scores for appropriate mind‐related comments and lower scores for non‐attuned mind‐related comments distinguished secure‐group mothers from their counterparts in the insecure‐avoidant, insecure‐resistant, and insecure‐disorganized groups. Higher scores for appropriate mind‐related comments and lower scores for non‐attuned mind‐related comments also independently predicted dichotomous organized/disorganized attachment. General maternal sensitivity predicted neither attachment security nor organization, although sensitivity was found to relate to dichotomous secure/insecure attachment specifically in the context of low socioeconomic status. The findings highlight how appropriate and non‐attuned mind‐related comments make independent contributions to attachment and suggest that mind‐mindedness is best characterized as a multidimensional construct.     

Multidimensional Family Therapy: A Science‐Based Treatment System

MDFT is a family‐based intervention for adolescent substance abuse and associated mental health and behavioural problems (Liddle, 2010). Integrative in several ways, MDFT uses an ecological or contextual conceptual framework to understand the developmental tasks of teens and their families. Research‐derived knowledge about risk and protective factors, and proximal causes, correlates and contributors to adolescent drug and related problems inform clinical thinking and interventions with every case. A multisystems approach, MDFT assesses and intervenes in four areas: (1) the adolescent as an individual and a member of a family and peer network; (2) the parent(s), both as individual adults and in his or her role as mother; father or caregiver; (3) the family environment and family relationships, as manifested in day‐to‐day family transactional patterns; and (4) extrafamilial sources of influence such as peers, school and juvenile justice. Interventions are made within and coordinated across domains. Progress in one area or with one person has implications for and use in others. Individual meetings with parent(s) and teen set the stage for family sessions, and family meetings may offer content and new outcomes that need to be brought to extrafamily meetings with juvenile justice or school personnel. MDFT was developed and tested as a treatment system rather than a one‐size‐fits‐all approach. A treatment system offers different versions of a clinical model that vary according to factors such as clinical sample characteristics (older versus younger adolescents, juvenile justice involved versus no involvement in juvenile justice systems), and treatment parameters (type of clinical setting and treatment dose).     

2½‐Year‐Old Children Use Animacy and Syntax to Learn a New Noun

We examine how attention to animacy information may contribute to children's developing knowledge of language. This research extends beyond prior research in that children were shown dynamic events with novel entities, and were asked not only to comprehend sentences but to use sentence structure to infer the meaning of a new word. In a 4 × 3 design, animacy status (e.g., animate agent, inanimate patient) and labeling syntax (agent, patient, nonlabel control) were varied. Across most events, 2 1/2‐year‐old participants responded as if they expected animate entities to be named. However, in a prototypical (animate agent‐inanimate patient) event condition, children responded differentially across different syntactic structures. Thus, the clearest evidence for attention to syntactic cues was found in the prototypical event condition. These results suggest that young children attend to the animacy status of unfamiliar entities, that they have expectations about animacy relations in events, and that these expectations support emerging syntactic knowledge.     

Mitigating Intergenerational Trauma Within the Parent‐Child Attachment

Nine‐year‐old Ben was said to hate women. His mother was terrified he'd ‘grow up a woman basher’. This paper describes the work done with Ben and his family at the Hobart Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. We drew predominantly on three therapeutic modalities: Theraplay, Family Attachment Narrative Therapy and Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy. Our work enabled Ben's mother to navigate the aftermath of her own trauma history in order to heal Ben's attachment trauma.     

Attachment and the Repetition of Trauma: A Case Study of Attachment‐Based Crisis Intervention

This article explores the difficult case of a 16‐year‐old who was causing a great deal of anxiety by presenting with dramatic behaviour, such as leaping off buildings, swallowing needles and poisons, and jumping in front of cars. The case study explores a six‐month period of crisis intervention, which focused on the unique kind of attachment relationship that existed between the teenager and his mother. The mother had experienced recurrent traumatisation prior to his birth, and it was found that the aftereffects of this traumatisation must have influenced the teenager's early attachment experiences and subsequent development. The attachment‐based therapy treated the crises as primarily ‘relational crises’. The therapy involved investigating and sharing formulations about their attachment history, cultivating an insight into the relational or dynamic determinants of the teenager's crises. Broader suggestions are made concerning the application of attachment theory to different approaches in family therapy, as well as to our understanding of phenomena such as transgenerational traumatisation.     

Attachment and Self‐Efficacy in Career Search Activities: A Structural Model

The author integrated attachment theory with social cognitive career theory (SCCT) to examine how attachment styles influence the career search self‐efficacy activities of interviewing, networking, job searching, and personal exploration. Using an undergraduate sample (N = 275, 81% women), the author tested a structural model. Results indicated that anxious attachment style was negatively related to interviewing self‐efficacy, whereas avoidant attachment style was negatively related to networking, job searching, and personal exploration self‐efficacy. Theoretical implications based on these findings provide support for an integrative model of attachment theory with SCCT. Career counselors are encouraged to consider clients’ attachment styles when working with individuals who are searching for employment. To help address the limitations of the study, future researchers could test the applicability of the current model with a more diverse sample.     

The Persistence of Neighboring as a Determinant of Community Attachment: A Community Field Perspective*

We examined the community field perspective as a complement to the linear‐development and systemic models of community attachment, wherein community attachment is defined as a social bond to the community of place. We empirically evaluated indicators of the actor's interaction within the social field, such as the perceived quality of neighboring and density of friendships, using social survey and census data from 99 communities in 1994 and 2004 and evaluated as well the percentage change in these indicators from 1994 to 2004. Results show that the community field perspective can complement previous approaches by highlighting the importance of perceived neighboring and friendship density and the persistence of perceived neighboring over time. We suggest implications for community development efforts aimed at enhancing community attachment.     

Community Attachment,Religious Participation,and Quality of Life Satisfaction among Adults Involved in Civic Participation

Civic participation constitutes a range of activities that strengthen participatory democracy, such as voting, volunteerism, association membership, or political and community activism. Factors associated with civic participation are community attachment, religious participation, and quality of life satisfaction. Using a sample of 55 adults, ages 18 to 92 years, the results indicate that this is an engaged sample group in the volunteer arena with high religious attendance, attachment to their communities, and average satisfaction with their quality of life as outcomes of their civic participation.     

Attachment Styles and Self‐Image in Turkish Adolescents

The purpose of this article is to examine the attachment styles and the relation of these styles to the self‐image in Turkish adolescents. The study included 378 adolescents (196 females and 182 males) from high schools with different socioeconomic status (SES) who were administered Relationship Scale Questionnaires and Offer Self‐Image Questionnaires. The findings indicate that adolescents from a low SES had significantly low scores on self‐image scales compared with those from high and middle SES. It was found that secure attachment patterns affect social relationships and superior adjustment aspects of self‐image positively. The results of this study show that attachment patterns play an important role in the development of the self‐image, which is a crucial psychological structure gained in adolescence.     

Attachment to Community and Civic and Political Engagement: A Case Study of Students

Youth's low level of civic and political engagement may detrimentally affect the health of communities and the democratic system. This paper examines the role of community attachment in explaining youth's levels of civic and engagement. This examination requires an evaluation of existing measures of community attachment and their relevance for understanding youth's experiences. The paper uses a student sample, highlighting a group of youth who have a degree of variation in their experiences of community attachment. We find that subjective measures of community attachment are related to volunteering and voting, but the objective measure of community attachment, that is, years of residence, affects voting and not volunteering. Different mechanisms explain civic engagement versus political engagement. As such, different strategies are required to combat low levels of civic versus political engagement. Le manque d'engagement civique et politique de la jeunesse peut avoir un effet néfaste sur la santé des communautés et sur le système démocratique. Cet article examine le rôle de l'appartenance communautaire pour expliquer le niveau de participation civique et politique des jeunes. Cette recherche nécessite une évaluation des mesures existantes de l'appartenance à une communauté et de leur pertinence pour la compréhension des expériences des jeunes. Cet article se base sur un groupe d'étudiants pour illustrer une population de jeunes avec un niveau d'attachement communautaire variable. Nous avons remarqué que les mesures subjectives de l'attachement à la communauté sont liées au bénévolat et au vote, alors que les mesures objectives de l'attachement, comme la durée de résidence, affecte le vote et non le bénévolat. De différents processus peuvent expliquer l'engagement civique par rapport à l'engagement politique. Ainsi, des stratégies différentes sont nécessaires pour lutter contre la faiblesse des niveaux de participation civique et politique.     

Attachment and Risk of Future Harm: A Case of Non‐Accidental Brain Injury

Decision making in cases of non‐accidental brain injury is complex. Courts often view ‘alternate care’ as a means of ensuring that children are protected from further physical abuse. It is important for treating and assessing clinicians to present the court with a broad systems perspective highlighting the multiple factors which combine to impact on the child's future safety, welfare and wellbeing. These include risk and protective factors in the family of origin, the family's openness to monitoring and treatment; the child's needs for long‐term attachment relationships, and the risks associated with alternate care. This article highlights the need to consider long‐term attachment needs as part of any risk‐of‐harm assessment for young children who have been maltreated. Attachment issues are considered in the case of Nellie, a 17‐month‐old toddler with a serious and unexplained non‐accidental brain injury.     

The Effect of Volunteering for Community Activity on the Social Resources of Low-SES Residents: Differences Between Volunteer Community Activists and Other Residents

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Community interventions seek to increase volunteer activists’ social resources in order to further the establishment...