Attachment--and loss.

Risky families are characterized by conflict and aggression and by relationships that are cold, unsupportive, and neglectful. These family characteristics create vulnerabilities and/or interact with genetically based vulnerabilities in offspring that produce disruptions in psychosocial functioning (specifically emotion processing and social competence), disruptions in stress-responsive biological regulatory systems, including sympathetic-adrenomedullary and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical functioning, and poor health behaviors, especially substance abuse. This integrated biobehavioral profile leads to consequent accumulating risk for mental health disorders, major chronic diseases, and early mortality. We conclude that childhood family environments represent vital links for understanding mental and physical health across the life span.

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Risky Families: Family Social Environments and the Mental and Physical Health of Offspring

The chapter begins with a distinction made between the interactions children have with peers, the relationships they form with peers, and the groups and networks within which peer interactions and relationships occur. From this conceptual overview, a review of relevant theories is presented. Thereafter, a developmental perspective of peer interactions, relationships, and groups is presented covering the periods of infancy, toddlerhood, early childhood, middle childhood, and adolescence. Subsequently, methods and measures pertaining to the study of children's peer experiences are described. Next, we examine factors that may account for peer acceptance and rejection as well as qualitatively rich and poor friendships. Among the factors discussed are included temperament (biological factors), sex of child, parenting, parent-child relationships, and culture. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the extent to which individual differences in peer acceptance, rejection and friendship (prevalence and quality) predict adaptive and maladaptive developmental outcomes and a suggested agenda for future research.


Keywords:

friendship;
peer interactions;
peer relationships;
peer rejection;
social acceptance;
social competence

Peer Interactions, Relationships, and Groups

This meta-analysis included 66 studies (N = 4,176) on parental antecedents of attachment security. The question addressed was whether maternal sensitivity is associated with infant attachment security, and what the strength of this relation is. It was hypothesized that studies more similar to Ainsworth's Baltimore study (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978) would show stronger associations than studies diverging from this pioneering study. To create conceptually homogeneous sets of studies, experts divided the studies into 9 groups with similar constructs and measures of parenting. For each domain, a meta-analysis was performed to describe the central tendency, variability, and relevant moderators. After correction for attenuation, the 21 studies (N = 1,099) in which the Strange Situation procedure in nonclinical samples was used, as well as preceding or concurrent observational sensitivity measures, showed a combined effect size of r(1,097) = .24. According to Cohen's (1988) conventional criteria, the association is moderately strong. It is concluded that in normal settings sensitivity is an important but not exclusive condition of attachment security. Several other dimensions of parenting are identified as playing an equally important role. In attachment theory, a move to the contextual level is required to interpret the complex transactions between context and sensitivity in less stable and more stressful settings, and to pay more attention to nonshared environmental influences.

http://www.marinusvanijzendoorn.nl/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/De-Wolff-Van-IJzendoorn-1997.-Child-Development.-Sensitivity-Attachment-meta-analysis-parental-antecedents.pdf

Sensitivity and Attachment: A Meta-Analysis on Parental Antecedents of Infant Attachment

This article reviews current literature examining associations between components of the family context and children and adolescents' emotion regulation (ER). The review is organized around a tripartite model of familial influence. Firstly, it is posited that children learn about ER through observational learning, modeling and social referencing. Secondly, parenting practices specifically related to emotion and emotion management affect ER. Thirdly, ER is affected by the emotional climate of the family via parenting style, the attachment relationship, family expressiveness and the marital relationship. The review ends with discussions regarding the ways in which child characteristics such as negative emotionality and gender affect ER, how socialization practices change as children develop into adolescents, and how parent characteristics such as mental health affect the socialization of ER.

The Role of the Family Context in the Development of Emotion Regulation

In 2 studies, peer relationships were related to children's perceptions of security in the child-mother relationship. In Study 1, a sample of 74 5th graders, children who viewed their relationship with their mother as more secure were significantly more accepted by peers, had more reciprocated friendships, and were less lonely than children who rated the relationship as less secure. In Study 2, a sample of 5th and 6th graders, 44 same-gender friend pairs were videotaped in conversation and completed friendship questionnaires. Dyads in which both children were securely attached to their mothers were more responsive, were less critical, and reported more companionship than did friend dyads in which one child was securely and the other insecurely attached to his or her mother. The findings demonstrate links between the peer and family systems in middle childhood.

Peer Relationships and Preadolescents' Perceptions of Security in the Child-Mother Relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the theory and evidence for the links of parent-child attachment with internalizing problems in childhood and adolescence. We address three key questions: (a) how consistent is the evidence that attachment security or insecurity is linked to internalizing symptoms, anxiety, and depression? (b) How consistent is the evidence that specific forms of insecurity are more strongly related to internalizing symptoms, anxiety, and depression than are other forms of insecurity? (c) Are associations with internalizing symptoms, anxiety, and depression consistent for mother-child and father-child attachment? The current findings are consistent with the hypothesis that insecure attachment is associated with the development of internalizing problems. The links between specific insecure attachment patterns and internalizing problems are difficult to evaluate. Father-child and mother-child attachments have a comparable impact, although there are relatively few studies of father-child attachment. No moderators consistently affect these relations. We also propose two models of how attachment insecurity may combine with other factors to lead to anxiety or depression.

Parent-child attachment and internalizing symptoms in childhood and adolescence: A review of empirical findings and future directions

1. Ontogeny of Attachment in Middle Childhood: Conceptualization of Normative Changes, Ofra Mayseless 2. Developmental Contextual Considerations of Parent-Child Attachment in the Later Middle Childhood Years, Rhonda A. Richardson 3. Assessing Attachment in Middle Childhood, Kathryn A. Kerns, Andrew Schlegelmilch, Theresa A. Morgan, and Michelle M. Abraham 4. The Attachment Hierarchy in Middle Childhood: Conceptual and Methodological Issues, Roger Kobak, Natalie Rosenthal, and Asia Serwik 5. Dimensions of Attachment in Middle Childhood, Jennifer L. Yunger, Brooke C. Corby, and David G. Perry 6. Attachment in Infancy and in Early and Late Childhood: A Longitudinal Study, Massimo Ammaniti, Anna Maria Speranza, and Silvia Fedele 7. The Construct of Coherence as an Indicator of Attachment Security in Middle Childhood: The Friends and Family Interview, Howard Steele and Miriam Steele 8. Attachment and Friendship Predictors of Psychosocial Functioning in Middle Childhood and the Mediating Roles of Social Support and Self-Worth, Cathryn Booth-LaForce, Kenneth H. Rubin, Linda Rose-Krasnor, and Kim B. Burgess 9. Quality of Attachment at School Age: Relations between Child Attachment Behavior, Psychosocial Functioning, and School Performance, Ellen Moss, Diane St-Laurent, Karine Dubois-Comtois, and Chantal Cyr 10. Perceived Security of Attachment to Mother and Father in 8- to 11-Year-Olds: Developmental Differences and Relations to Self-Worth and Peer Relationships at School, Karine Verschueren and Alfons Marcoen 11. Examining Relationships between Students and Teachers: A Potential Extension of Attachment Theory?, Laura T. Zionts 12. Relationships Past, Present, and Future: Reflections on Attachment in Middle Childhood, H. Abigail Raikes and Ross A. Thompson

Attachment in middle childhood.

Research on parent-child attachment and parental child rearing practices has been pursued independently. The purpose of the present study was to test whether a secure attachment relationship is related to parental monitoring and child efforts to contribute to the monitoring process. This question was examined in a cross-sectional study of third- and sixth-grade children and their parents. Attachment-based measures were used to tap child and parent perceptions of attachment. Monitoring (i.e., parents' awareness of children's whereabouts and activities) was assessed through phone interviews with children and parents. Child contributions to monitoring were assessed with parent and child questionnaires. A more secure attachment was related to closer monitoring and greater cooperation by the child in monitoring situations, especially at sixth grade. The findings illustrate the importance of embedding attachment within a larger child rearing context.

Parent-child attachment and monitoring in middle childhood.

Associations between insecure attachment and sexual experiences were tested in a sample of 328 college students. Variations in adult attachment previously have been shown to relate to sexual behaviors, with the current study extending earlier work by examining different sexual outcomes and by testing factors that may account for these relations. Avoidant attachment was expected to relate to engagement in casual sex (i.e., a greater number of sexual partners and lower percentage of partners within committed relationships), with less restrictive sexual beliefs mediating the relations. In contrast, anxious attachment was expected to relate to more unwanted but consensual sexual experiences, and to more negative affect about sexual experiences, with low self-esteem mediating the relations. Results showed some support for the hypotheses. Avoidant attachment was related to the type (but not number) of sexual partners, with sexual beliefs mediating the relations. A greater number of unwanted but consensual sexual experiences related to anxious and avoidant attachment for women and to avoidant attachment for men. Anxiety related to negative affect for women and men, and self-esteem served as a partial mediator of these relations.

Kathryn A. Kerns

Papers

Peer Relationships and Preadolescents' Perceptions of Security in the Child-Mother Relationship.

Parent-child attachment and internalizing symptoms in childhood and adolescence: A review of empirical findings and future directions

Attachment in middle childhood.

Parent-child attachment and monitoring in middle childhood.

Associations between insecure attachment and sexual experiences