Maternal-infant attachment, naturally

In answer to a reader's question about the necessity of prenatal sonograms, this column asserts that, unl there is a serious medical problem, mothers should depend less on technology and more on their natural abilities to foster the all-important bond with their babies.     

青少年家庭依恋、朋友依恋与网络游戏成瘾的关系

探讨青少年依恋性与网络游戏成癌的关系.为网络游戏成瘾的干预工作提供参考.以500名青少年学生为研究对象,以适合我国青少年现状的依恋问卷和台湾学者陈淑惠所编制的<中文网络成瘾量表>为研究工具,采用积差相关分析与回归分析方法得出:焦虑性因素与网络成瘾存在显著正相关;亲和性因素与网络成瘾基本上无显著相关;家庭依恋与朋友依恋中的焦虑性因素均能显著预测网络成癌.     

Childhood sexual abuse, attachment, and trauma symptoms in college females: the moderating role of attachment

OBJECTIVE: The present study tests a model linking attachment, childhood sexual abuse (CSA), and adult psychological functioning. It expands on previous work by assessing the degree to which attachment security moderates the relationship between a history of child sexual abuse and trauma-related symptoms in college females. METHOD: Self-reports of attachment, childhood sexual abuse, and adult psychological functioning were obtained from 324 female undergraduate students attending a Southeastern U.S. university. Separate analyses were conducted examining the potential moderating role for close-adult, parent-child, and peer attachment styles. RESULTS: In this sample, 37.7% of participants reported sexually abusive experiences prior to age 16. History of child sexual abuse was consistently associated with higher levels of trauma-related symptoms and lower levels of attachment security in close-adult, parent-child, and peer relations. Additionally, attachment security was consistently associated with trauma-related symptoms. Close-adult, parent-child, and peer attachment differentially moderated trauma-related symptoms. Specifically, in peer relationships, the strength of the relationships between attachment measures and trauma symptoms were greater for CSA survivors than for non-abused participants. The opposite pattern of results was found for attachment in parental and close-adult relationships. CONCLUSION: Results suggest that attachment security in peer and parent relationships protects against the negative effects of CSA, while only weak, marginally significant protective effects were observed for close-adult relationships. Only modest support was found for the conceptualization of attachment as a moderator of the relationship between CSA and trauma-related symptoms. However, the results suggest that attachment security at least partially protects against negative CSA outcomes.     

Attachment behavior, attachment security, and temperament during infancy

In summary reviews and empirical research, investigators have suggested that attachment classifications derived from the Ainsworth Strange Situation may reflect variations along dimensions of temperament as well as, or perhaps instead of, individual differences with respect to infant-mother attachments. In this study, relations between temperament dimensions from the Infant Temperament Questionnaire (Revised) and Strange Situation behaviors were evaluated. Relations between the behavioral style scores and the categories of attachment quality were also tested. The hypothesis that temperamental difficulty would be related to negative emotionality, as indexed by infant distress during separation (but not during the reunions), was tested and supported. Neither the behavioral style dimensions nor the temperamental diagnoses (e.g., "easy" vs. "difficult") were associated significantly with attachment classifications. The results are consistent with previous findings that temperament measures do not predict attachment security. Nevertheless, certain behaviors indexing negative emotionality that may be observed in the context of the Strange Situation are related to temperamental variability.     

Affiliative motivation,school attachment,and aggression in school

School attachment is a robust predictor of adjustment in children and youth. Previous research has demonstrated effects of school context on student attachment, but individual‐level contributions have not been explored. Our study examined the role of affiliative orientation in school attachment and aggressive behavior in children and youth from Grades 3 through 12. A total of 834 students in three school districts completed self‐report measures of affiliative motivation, attachment to school, and frequency of physically and relationally aggressive acts. Results supported the hypothesis that students high in affiliative orientation reported higher levels of school attachment and lower levels of physical and relational aggression. Path analysis indicated that the relation of affiliative orientation to aggression was mediated by school attachment, but that the mediational effect was moderated by sex. Male students, and students of both sexes with low affiliative motivation, may receive special benefit from practices designed to increase school attachment. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Psychol Schs 43: 231–246, 2006.     

Maternal self-efficacy and infant attachment: integrating physiology, perceptions, and behavior

48 mothers of 5-month-old infants were asked to estimate their control over the termination of an infant cry in a laboratory-simulated child-care task. Mothers who greatly overestimated their control differed from low or moderate "illusion-of-control" mothers by exhibiting a depression-prone attributional style, a depressed mood state, perceiving the father as participating less in child care, and responding to impending infant cries with heart-rate acceleration characteristic of aversive conditioning. At age 16 months, 40 of the mother-infant pairs participated in the Ainsworth Strange Situation. Insecure infant attachment at 16 months was associated with maternal perception of overcontrol, depressed mood state, and aversive conditioning to the impending cry in the laboratory task at the 5-month period.     

Infant approach behavior as related to attachment.

The chief purpose of this study was to identify characteristics that distinguish approach as an attachment behavior from approach serving other behavioral systems. Locomotor approaches of 16 male and 10 female white middle-class infants to an attachment figure (the mother) and to a nonattachment figure (the visitor-observer) were examined under naturalistic conditions at home. Observations were made during 4-hour home visits at 3-week intervals; those from 26 to 54 weeks were used. When approach was examined in a free-choice situation and without regard to behavioral context, infants approached the mother proportionally (though slightly) more often than the visitor (p less than .05). In 2 behavioral contexts, however, spontaneous infant approaches were sharply differential to the mother; approaches accompanied by crying and approaches terminating in a pickup appeal were directed almost exclusively to the mother (p less than .0001 for both). Touching upon completion of the approach was not differential, except in the context of a pickup appeal. Object-oriented approaches were more often directed to the visitor than to the mother (p less than .002) and may be either exploratory or affiliative. It is suggested that neither approach nor touching can be assumed to serve the attachment system without consideration of context- both environmental and behavioral.     

Mother-child discourse, attachment security, shared positive affect, and early conscience development

The separate literatures on parental discipline, maternal discourse about emotion, and autobiographical memory support the idea that parent-child discourse in the context of a supportive relationship plays a role in a child's early conscience development, and this study was designed to examine this issue. Forty-two preschool children and their mothers took part in a 45-min structured laboratory session, and at their homes, mothers completed the Attachment Q-Set. As part of the laboratory session, each mother was asked to discuss with her child one incident that occurred within the last week in which her child behaved well and one in which her child misbehaved. These conversations were transcribed verbatim and coded for maternal references to feelings, rules, consequences of the child's actions, and moral evaluatives. Each child also took part in a behavioral measure of internalization and several compliance tasks, and mothers completed a maternal report of the child's early conscience development. Consistent with attachment theory, attachment security predicted maternal and child references to feelings and moral evaluatives. Attachment security, shared positive affect between the mother and child, and maternal references to feelings and moral evaluatives also predicted specific aspects of early conscience development.     

National attachment among Berlin and London head teachers: the explanatory impact of national identity,national pride and supranational attachment

The link between formal education and the formation of national attachment is widely acknowledged. Yet, research on teachers’ national attachment is still relatively rare. Based on a comparative analysis of survey data obtained from 281 Berlin and London state secondary school head teachers, this paper proposes a multivariate model in which notions of national identity, levels of national pride and levels of supranational attachment represent predictors of national attachment. The respective statistical analyses reveal striking cross‐national similarities in terms of the individual and joint explanatory impact of these predictors. Other findings concern correlations between different notions of Britishness/Germanness and levels of national attachment, the relationship between national and supranational attachment, and associations between national pride and national attachment.     

Teacher-student attachment relationship,variables associated,and measurement: A systematic review

This systematic review offers an overview of the results of research from the last 10 years concerning the teacher-student relationship and its connection with other attachment theory constructs and child development variables. An exhaustive search of Web of Science, SCOPUS, and PsycINFO was performed, finding a total of 24 studies that met the established eligibility criteria. The evidence accumulated between 2010 and 2020 suggests that: 1) early care experiences have an effect on the formation of new relationships at primary school, although it is possible that children will construct new mental representations based on interactions in day to day life, 2) at the level of the teacher's characteristics, attachment style and the availability towards children's needs seem to be associated with school adjustment and problematic behaviour in children, and 3) the quality of the teacher-student relationship is significantly associated with externalizing and internalizing behaviour, school liking, peer acceptance, academic performance, self-concept and emotional regulation in children. For its part, when evaluating the quality of the teacher-student relationship, STRS continues to be widely used to study the teacher's perspective. However, in recent years other measurement instruments have become available that explore the perspective of the student, most notably CARTS and SPARTS. Advances in the study of the teacher-student relationship as a bond with important implications for the development of children in the primary education stage are discussed.     

Social support, attachment, and psychopathology in high risk formerly maltreated adults

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to examine the relationships among social support, attachment security, and psychopathology in an adult sample of high risk abuse survivors. Attachment security was conceptualized in terms of two underlying dimensions, the working models of self and other. METHOD: Sixty-six participants (24 men and 42 women) who met conditions for physical or sexual abuse were recruited from the greater Boston area. They completed the "Record of Maltreatment Experiences." the "Relationship Scales Questionnaire," the "Norbeck Social Support Questionnaire," and multiple measures of psychopathology. RESULTS: When multiple risk and protective factors were examined concurrently (e.g., social support, attachment, abuse history, IQ, SES), a negative view of self (one of the attachment poles) was the strongest predictor of overall psychopathology. Social support did not emerge as a significant direct predictor of psychopathology, once the effects of negative view of self were accounted for. However, among participants low on social support, in comparison to those who are high, a negative view of self was more highly correlated with some psychopathology measures. CONCLUSIONS: These findings indicate that among maltreatment survivors, negative view of self emerges as the most substantial predictor of psychopathology when examined in combination with other relevant risk factors.     

儿童依恋类型的影响因素分析及安全型依恋的培养

本文对影响依恋形成的几个因素进行了分析，这些因素来自父母、家庭以及儿童自身三方面，并且针对这些影响因素我们提出了相应的应对策略，对于培养安全型依恋的儿童具有重要参考价值。     

Preschool teacher attachment,school readiness and risk of learning difficulties

Attachment is the emotional bond between children and their caregivers (parents or otherwise). Infants and young children usually have more than one selective attachment, and all of these attachment relationships, including those between children and teachers, have important effects on cognitive and social development. Secure attachment to a preschool teacher may help children to improve their preschool experience. Recent studies suggest that the adverse effect of inadequate preschool experiences can lead to skill deficiencies that mimic the effects of basic cognitive deficits. This study evaluates the relationships among attachment to preschool teachers, school readiness, and the risk for developing learning difficulties in preschoolers using three measures: the School Readiness 4-5 battery, the Precocious Identification of Learning Difficulties, and the Attachment Q Set. This study examined 152 preschoolers. The results showed that attachment to preschool teachers is related to linguistic development level, the psychomotor skills involved in school readiness, and learning difficulty risk.     

One-sided and mutually aggressive couples: Differences in attachment,conflict prevalence,and coping

This study investigated concurrent links between adolescent romantic couples’ reports of aggression (relational and physical) and relationship functioning (e.g., attachment security, conflict prevalence, coping strategies, jealousy, and affiliative and romantic relationship quality) using a pattern-oriented approach. The sample included 194 romantic partner dyads (Mage = 16.99 years for females and Mage = 18.41 years for males). A hierarchical cluster analysis identified five distinct subgroups of dyads based on male and female reports of relational and physical aggression, ranging from nonaggressive couples (42%), to those characterized by aggressive females (18%), aggressive males (14%), physically aggressive females (20%), and mutually aggressive females and males (6%). Clusters in which one partner was perceived as either relationally or physically aggressive were characterized by higher rates of conflict, less adaptive coping, and more jealousy (particularly in males). The mutually aggressive couples showed the least adaptive relationship functioning, with high rates of conflict, a deficit in reflection and emotion regulation in conflict situations, and a lack of affiliative relationship qualities. The discussion focuses on the formative character of aggression in these early romantic relations, the aggravating impact of mutual aggression on relationship functioning, and the gender-specific functions of aggression in relationships characterized by unilateral aggression.