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.     

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,Communication, and Relationship Functioning Among College Student Veterans and Nonveterans

This study examined attachment processes of college student veterans and nonveterans and further examined how veteran status and attachment style directly and indirectly predict relationship functioning. Results indicated that student veterans were more often dismissing in their attachment style but less often preoccupied than nonveteran students. Veteran status moderated the association between attachment style and dyadic consensus. The contributions of attachment and communication processes to overall relationship adjustment differed for student veterans and nonveterans.     

Correlates of Attachment at School Age: Maternal Reported Stress, Mother-Child Interaction, and Behavior Problems

The contribution of attachment, maternal reported stress, and mother-child interaction to the prediction of teacher-reported behavior problems was examined for a French-Canadian sample of 121 school-age children. Attachment classifications were assigned on the basis of reunion behavior with mother when the children were between 5 and 7 years of age. Maternal reported stress and mother-child interaction patterns were assessed concurrent to the attachment measure, whereas behavior problems were evaluated both at ages 5 to 7 and 7 to 9 years. Security of attachment significantly predicted the likelihood of school-age behavior problems: Controlling/other children were most at risk for both externalizing and internalizing problems across both age periods. Younger ambivalent children presented clinical cut-off levels of externalizing problems, and older avoidant boys had higher internalizing scores. Patterns of maternal-reported stress and mother-child interaction differed across attachment groups and contributed to prediction of school-age behavior problems, partially mediating the relation between attachment and adaptation. Results support the importance of attachment in explaining school-age adaptation and validity of attachment coding for children of this age.     

Adult Attachment,Cognitive Appraisal,and University Students' Reactions to Romantic Infidelity

This study examined the relationships between adult attachment, cognitive appraisal, and university students' behavioral and emotional reactions to infidelity situations in romantic relationships. Results based on 173 university students suggested that both attachment and cognitive appraisals significantly predicted distinct types of infidelity reactions and that participants' cognitive appraisal mediated the effects of attachment on behavioral and emotional reactions. Counseling applications for university counselors are discussed on the basis of attachment perspectives and cognitive appraisal models.     

Relations between Attachment, Gender, and Behavior with Peers in Preschool

40 4-year-old children and their mothers participated in a study investigating concurrent links between attachment and peer interactions. Security of attachment was assessed in the laboratory from reunion episodes following a 10-min separation. Focal child observations were carried out during indoor free play in preschool. Relations between insecure attachment and peer interactions were different for boys and girls. Insecure boys showed more aggressive, disruptive, assertive, controlling, and attention-seeking behavior than secure children. Insecure girls showed more dependent behavior than secure children but less assertive and controlling behavior, and more positive expressive behavior and compliance. Secure girls and secure boys did not differ significantly. Gender differences in social behavior may be accounted for by a subgroup of children, those classified as insecure, and the same attachment classification may lead to different predictions depending on whether the child is a boy or a girl.     

Behavioral Inhibition, Heart Period, and Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia: An Attachment Perspective

This study shows that relations between behavioral inhibition and cardiac activity may be clarified by identifying attachment status, whereas relations between security of attachment and cardiac activity may be clarified by identifying inhibition status. Assessments at 4.5 years (N = 126) included heart period (HP), respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), behavioral inhibition (BI), and security of attachment. There was no main effect of BI status (Low, Medium, High) on either HP or RSA. Instead, it was only the Secure children who showed the predicted relation between low BI and high HP or RSA, with the Low BI-Secure group having significantly higher HP than either the High BI-Secure or the Low BI-Insecure groups. Turning to attachment, both HP and RSA increased significantly from an assessment during separation from mother to an assessment 3 min after reunion. The only subgroups showing a significant increase in HP, however, were those with both secure attachment and an absence of high BI.     

Infant Proneness-to-Distress Temperament, Maternal Personality, and Mother-Infant Attachment: Associations and Goodness of Fit

66 mother-infant pairs were examined when the infants were 9 and 13 months. The purpose of this report was to examine relations between infant proneness-to-distress temperament, maternal personality characteristics, and mother-infant attachment. There were no main-effect relations between infant proneness-to-distress temperament as assessed at 9 months and infant attachment classification at 13 months. This was true whether security of attachment (A and C vs. B) or proposed temperament (A1-B2 vs. B3-C2) groupings of attachment classifications were examined. Infant proneness-to-distress temperament, however, was associated with maternal behavior and personality. Furthermore, security of attachment could be predicted by an interaction between maternal personality and infant proneness-to-distress. The importance of considering goodness-of-fit relations in predicting attachment security is discussed.     

Developmental trajectories and longitudinal mediation effects of self-esteem,peer attachment,child maltreatment and depression on early adolescents

ObjectivesThe purpose of this study is to identify the developmental trajectories of peer attachment, self-esteem, depression, and child maltreatment, and to understand the longitudinal mediation effects that peer attachment and self-esteem have on the influence of perceived abuse on early adolescent depression.MethodsThis study uses Year 1 to Year 5 data of the 4th grader panel of the Korea Youth Panel Survey (KYPS) and utilizes a multivariate latent growth model to analyze the main variables in the applicable data between 5th (i.e., Year 2) and 8th (i.e., Year 5) grades.ResultsThe results indicate that from the 5th to the 8th grade, the degree of abuse and depression increases while self-esteem gradually decreases with slowly lowering peer attachment. A significant distribution of the initial values and the rate of change were present for all main variables of the study, confirming individual differences in time wise changes. Further, more exposure to abuse correlated with a decrease in self-esteem, while an increase in self-esteem greatly reduced depression. The initial value of self-esteem showed a partial mediation effect, whereas the rate of change indicated a full mediation effect with a significant longitudinal mediation effect. More experience of abuse during early adolescence indicated a lower degree of peer attachment, and a higher peer attachment was related to decreased depression. A significant partial mediation effect was present for both the initial value and the rate of change of peer attachment, and a longitudinal mediation effect was present.Practice implicationsThis study confirmed that self-esteem in early adolescents is an important protective factor that can greatly reduce the degree of depression, and suggests continuous interventions conducted to increase self-esteem in adolescence. Furthermore, by determining that peer attachment decreases the degree of depression in children at risk, the study emphasizes the healing aspect of adolescent peer attachment.     

Attachment from infancy to early adulthood in a high-risk sample: continuity, discontinuity, and their correlates

This study explores the stability of attachment security and representations from infancy to early adulthood in a sample chosen originally for poverty and high risk for poor developmental outcomes. Participants for this study were 57 young adults who are part of an ongoing prospective study of development and adaptation in a high-risk sample. Attachment was assessed during infancy by using the Ainsworth Strange Situation (Ainsworth & Wittig) and at age 19 by using the Berkeley Adult Attachment Interview (George, Kaplan, & Main). Possible correlates of continuity and discontinuity in attachment were drawn from assessments of the participants and their mothers over the course of the study. Results provided no evidence for significant continuity between infant and adult attachment in this sample, with many participants transitioning to insecurity. The evidence, however, indicated that there might be lawful discontinuity. Analyses of correlates of continuity and discontinuity in attachment classification from infancy to adulthood indicated that the continuous and discontinuous groups were differentiated on the basis of child maltreatment, maternal depression, and family functioning in early adolescence. These results provide evidence that although attachment has been found to be stable over time in other samples, attachment representations are vulnerable to difficult and chaotic life experiences.     

Infant Day-Care, Attachment, and the "File Drawer Problem"

The research literature on infant day-care and attachment may be biased by the unavailability of "file drawer" studies, unpublished data showing no statistically significant effects. Replication studies, whether showing an effect or not, are essential to clarify the relation between day-care and attachment. This study of 105 12-month-olds is an attempt to replicate four similar studies summarized and combined by Belsky to show that infants in day-care are at risk for insecure attachment. In the present study, no results were robust enough to emerge consistently, although there was a trend for more negative attachment outcomes to be associated with little or part-time day-care rather than with full-time day-care. In general, the results suggest that the specific measures, definitions of full- and part-time, and statistical techniques used in studies examining the relation between day-care and attachment are likely to affect the outcome of such studies.

For any given research area, one cannot tell how many studies have been conducted but never reported. The extreme view of the "file drawer problem" is that journals are filled with the 5% of the studies that show Type I errors, while the file drawers are filled with the 95% of the studies that show nonsignificant results. [Rosenthal, 1979, p. 638]

     

Attachment, positive affect, and competence in the peer group: two studies in construct validation.

2 studies were undertaken to assess the positive affective correlates of secure attachment in infancy and to assess the relation between secure attachment in infancy and competence in the peer group at age 3 1/2 years. In study 1, smiling and smiling combined with vocalizing and/or showing toys distinguished securely from anxiously attached infants during free play at age 18 months. Rated quality of affective sharing distinguished securely from anxiously attached infants during free play at 18 months and 24 months. Thus, secure attachment involves more than the absence of negative or maladaptive behavior directed toward a caregiver. Study 2 assessed cross-age, cross-situational, and cross-behavioral consistency in quality of social adaptation. Quality of infant-mother attachment relationships at age 15 months was related to Q-sort assessments of personal and interpersonal competence in the preschool play-group at age 3 1/2 years. The results contribute to the validation of attachment as an important developmental construct. They also suggest that age appropriate assessment of developmental social competence constructs can be a useful alternative to the study of homotypic behavioral continuity.     

College Student Cyberbullying: Self‐Esteem,Depression, Loneliness,and Attachment

In an online survey (N = 338) at a large midwestern university, frequency counts indicated that 51 (15.1%) undergraduate students were cyberbully victims during college, and 27 (8.0%) were cyberbully offenders during college. In simultaneous regressions, maternal attachment anxiety explained unique variance in cybervictimization and cyberoffending. In multivariate analyses of variance, cyberbully victims (vs. nonvictims) reported higher depression, loneliness, and maternal attachment anxiety, and cyberbully offenders (vs. nonoffenders) reported lower self‐esteem and higher maternal attachment anxiety. College counseling implications are discussed.     

Associations among Adult Attachment Representations, Maternal Sensitivity, and Infant-Mother Attachment in a Sample of Adolescent Mothers

Associations among adolescent attachment organization, maternal sensitivity, and infant attachment organization were examined prospectively in 74 teenaged mother-infant dyads. Pregnant teenagers' attachment organizations predicted both sensitivity and infant-mother attachments. Mothers classified autonomous (F) in the prenatal period showed higher levels of sensitivity at both 3 and 9 months than mothers classified dismissing (Ds), preoccupied (E), or unresolved (U). Correspondence between maternal attachment (F vs. Ds/E/U) and infant attachment (secure [B] vs. avoidant [A]/resistant [C]/ disorganized [D]) was observed in 58 of 74 (78%) dyads. Exact 4-group (Ds/E/F/U and A/B/C/D) agreement was observed in 50 of 74 (68%) families. In contrast, associations between maternal sensitivity and infant attachment were not significant, leading to questions about the processes that link attachment representations, maternal behavior, and infant attachment in adolescent mothers.     

Helping,Sharing, and Comforting in Young Children: Links to Individual Differences in Attachment

Although attachment theory has long posited a link between early experiences of care and children's prosocial behavior, investigations of this association have not embraced the multifaceted nature of prosociality. This study is the first to assess associations between child attachment and independent observations of helping, sharing, and comforting. Attachment quality in 3- to 5-year-old children (N = 137) was linked to all three prosocial behaviors. Additionally, bifactor analyses revealed distinct associations between attachment and children's general prosocial dispositions and their specific abilities to meet the unique challenges of helping and, marginally, comforting. These findings underscore the importance of considering multiple explanations for links between attachment and prosocial behavior and provide novel insights into sources of variation in children's prosociality.     

The relation of attachment security to adolescents' paternal and peer relationships, depression, and externalizing behavior

The relation of attachment security to multiple domains of psychosocial functioning was examined in a community sample of 167 early adolescents. Security of attachment organization, assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview, was linked to success in establishing autonomy while maintaining a sense of relatedness both with fathers and with peers, even after accounting for predictions from qualities of the mother-teen relationship. Growth curve analyses revealed links of insecurity to increasing patterns of externalizing behavior and higher and stable patterns of depressive symptoms across adolescence. Implications for a developing theory of the connections of the attachment system to multiple domains of functioning in adolescence are discussed.     

Parental sensitivity, infant affect, and affect regulation: predictors of later attachment

This longitudinal study on 94 families examined the extent to which parent sensitivity, infant affect, and affect regulation at 4 months predicted mother-infant and father-infant attachment classifications at 1 year. Parent sensitivity was rated from face-to-face interaction episodes; infant affect and regulatory behaviors were rated from mother-infant and father-infant still-face episodes at 4 months. Infants' attachment to mothers and fathers was rated from the Strange Situation at 12 and 13 months. MANOVAs indicated that 4-month parent and infant factors were associated with infant-mother but not infant-father attachment groups. Discriminant Function Analysis further indicated that two functions, "Affect Regulation" and "Maternal Sensitivity," discriminated infant-mother attachment groups; As and B1-B2s showed more affect regulation toward mothers and fathers than B3-B4s and Cs at 4 months, and mothers of both secure groups were more sensitive than mothers of Cs. Finally, the association between maternal sensitivity and infant-mother attachment was partially mediated by infant affect regulation.     

Adult Attachment; Lesbian,Gay, and Bisexual Identity; and Sexual Attitudes of Nonheterosexual Individuals

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) college students from 12 university campuses (N = 177) participated in this study that examined the relationships between adult attachment, LGB identity, and sexual attitudes. Findings indicated that adult attachment was significantly related to LGB identity and sexual attitudes and that an LGB identity variable moderated the relationship between attachment avoidance and sexual permissiveness attitudes. Findings, counseling implications, and future research directions are discussed in terms of attachment and LGB identity theory.     

A correlational study on attachment dimensions,academic performance and self-regulated learning of university students in South Africa

ABSTRACT

An association between attachment and academic performance appears to be consistently found in children; however, reports on such an association in adolescents are contradictory. This study aimed to determine whether the attachment dimensions of anxiety or avoidance significantly correlate with a student’s academic performance at university. Moreover, since individual differences in attachment index distinct self-regulatory capacities, this study aimed to determine whether any correlation exists between a student’s attachment dimensions and measures of self-regulated learning. Attachment dimensions were determined by the Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised questionnaire, while self-regulated learning was determined by the Learning and Study Strategies Inventory, in a sample of university students (n = 185). Neither attachment dimensions correlated significantly with measures of academic performance. However, attachment dimensions did significantly correlate with measures of self-regulated learning in this study.     

Maternal adverse childhood experiences,attachment style,and mental health: Pathways of transmission to child behavior problems

BackgroundInvestigations have found mothers’ adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) confer an intergenerational risk to their children's outcomes. However, mechanisms underlying this transmission have only been partially explained by maternal mental health. Adult attachment insecurity has been shown to mediate the association of ACEs and mental health outcomes, yet an extension of this research to children's behavioral problems has not been examined.ObjectiveTo examine the cascade from maternal ACEs to risk for child behavioral problems at five years of age, via mothers’ attachment insecurity and mental health.Participants and settingParticipants in the current study were 1994 mother-child dyads from a prospective longitudinal cohort collected from January 2011 to October 2014.MethodsMothers retrospectively reported their ACEs when children were 36 months of age. When children were 60 months of age, mothers completed measures of their attachment style, depression and anxiety symptoms, and their children's behavior problems.ResultsPath analysis demonstrated maternal ACEs were associated with children's internalizing problems indirectly via maternal attachment avoidance, attachment anxiety, and depression symptoms, but not directly (β = .05, 95% CI [−.001, .10]). Maternal ACEs indirectly predicted children's externalizing problems via maternal attachment avoidance, attachment anxiety, and depression. A direct effect was also observed from maternal ACEs to child externalizing problems (β = .06, 95% CI [.01, .11]).ConclusionsMaternal ACEs influenced children's risk for poor behavioral outcomes via direct and indirect intermediary pathways. Addressing maternal insecure attachment style and depression symptoms as intervention targets for mothers with histories of ACEs may help to mitigate the intergenerational transmission of risk.