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Introduction to New Directions in Early Attachment Research 2013 BULLETIN Number 1 Serial No. 63 Introduction to New Directions in Early Attachment Research Karina Weichold University of Jena, Jena, Germany E-mail: [email protected] and Deepali Sharma Christ University, Bangalore, India E-mail: [email protected] The ground-breaking work of Mary Ainsworth and UK which present new and fresh findings in the area of John Bowlby decades ago stimulated many scientists attachment research. These studies are commented on by around the globe to conduct research on attachment in two experts in the field, Fabienne Becker-Stoll, and Kate infancy, its development and consequences for later life. Ellis-Davies. In addition, we present three lab reports, in Findings in this area stressed the importance of close emo- which the authors introduce their work on an intervention tional relationships in early life to develop a secure form of program for at-risk infants and toddlers to promote secure attachment to the primary caregiver, and the capacity to attachment (Roben & Dozier), attachment and implicit cog- explore the world while having a ‘‘safe haven’’ to come back nitive/bodily-kinesthetic processes in child-parent rela- to. Empirical evidence also identified problematic attach- tionships (Dykas), and the relation between the marital ment constellations leading to insecure or disorganized relationship and parental engagement in child care (Vieira styles of attachment. Such constellations not only influence et al.). All of them are great examples of how diverse con- many facets of development in childhood but also predict temporary topics and methods in attachment research are. psychosocial adaptation in later life, for instance the quali- This ISSBD Bulletin also contains the notes from our ties of intimate partnerships, or the relationship towards president, Wolfgang Schneider, along with a report from one’s own children. Today, much data on early attachment the 9th ISSBD Africa Regional Workshop on ‘‘Consolidating is available, and an enduring interest in the topic continues. and Extending Early Career Scholars’ Capacity to do Identification of variations in attachment development Research across the Life Span,’’ and the news from the IJBD between groups characterized, for instance, by atypical Editor Marcel van Aken. Finally, we have included a new rearing contexts, such as conditions of severe deprivation section in the ISSBD Bulletin: the Book Review – here we and foster homes, disparity of treatment by gender, or dif- will start with a review of a book on ‘‘Fathers in Cultural ferences in cultural background remain of particular inter- Contexts" thereby also reflecting on attachment and parent- est to researchers. In addition, there has been a recent focus ing issues. on the development and evaluation of evidence-based We hope that the readers of this issue of the ISSBD Bul- interventions to promote secure attachment in children. letin enjoy reading the papers as much as we did when we This special section of the ISSBD Bulletin focuses on put this together. We are grateful to all authors of this issue, such new findings in the area of attachment research. We and thank them for their time, energy, and efforts to write a chose this topic not only because we wanted to represent contribution for the Bulletin. In addition, we thank those an area of research with a long tradition while giving new members who actively approached us for publication scientific input for the future, but also wanted to follow the issues or to stimulate new activities of the Bulletin Editorial positive echo and high interest that we received from the team, such as organizing and releasing book reviews. All readers of our last issue focusing on parenting research. For these are important for us because they indicate reception this special section, we have five feature articles by authors of and interest in the content of the Bulletin – both of which from Hungary, the US, Bolivia, Brazil, Germany, and the are very welcome! •1 International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development Gender Differences In Children’s Responses To Attachment Story Stems: True Or Artefacts? Ildiko Toth,* Krisztina Lakatos and Judit Gervai Developmental Psychology Group, Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and Psychology, Research Centre for Natural Sciences, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary *E-mail: [email protected] The large number of attachment studies that have been con- the previous 5 years (e.g. divorce, deaths, severe illness) ducted based on behavioral observations in separation- were collected, and a cumulative Life Stress Index (LSI) was reunion settings (e.g. Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, computed. 1978) have not detected gender effects on frequencies of Frequencies of attachment classifications were 42 attachment classifications (e.g. van IJzendoorn, 1995); how- (50%) secure, 9 (10.7%)avoidant,3(3.6%)ambivalentand ever, differences between girls and boys have been found in 30 (35.7%) disorganized, of which the frequency of studies examining children’s mental representations of secure classification was within the range of other pub- attachment relationships by the use of doll figures to elicit lished data from story stem assessments. Insecure classi- attachment-relevant stories. Here, we report data from our fications, however, were predominantly disorganized for study that used a story completion procedure to measure both genders (Figure 1). The rate of disorganization was attachment quality in Hungarian preschoolers. In seeking high in our study, but not significantly higher (p ¼ .26) to explain our finding of a gender effect on attachment, than that in the first published data (26.4%;Green we review and discuss potential sources of similar findings et al., 2000). Because of the small number of avoidant by others. In doing so, we hope to raise questions for attach- and ambivalent children, a two-way secure vs. insecure ment research and to stimulate further discussion (e.g. Del (mostly disorganized) grouping was used in further Giudice, 2009; Pierrehumbert et al., 2009). analyses. There was a striking difference in the distribu- tion of genders across the secure and insecure groups (w2 Our study ¼ 8.28, df ¼ 1, p ¼ .004; see Figure 1). Nearly 70% of the girls were securely attached, while over 60% of the boys The mother-child attachment of 84 low-social-risk, firstborn were insecure (47% disorganized). children (49 boys, 35 girls) was assessed at 6 years of age by To assess the contributions of gender, VQ and LSI to the Manchester Child Attachment Story Task (MCAST, Green, attachment insecurity, a binary logistic regression analysis Stanley, Smith, & Goldwyn, 2000). MCAST is a doll-play was conducted with all predictors entered in the first step method aiming at eliciting relationship-specific responses and interaction terms entered in the second. The significant from children by presenting 4 attachment-relevant ’dis- main effect model (w2 ¼ 16.79, df ¼ 3, p ¼ .001) contained tress’ story stems to be completed by the child. The coding two significant predictors only, male gender (Wald ¼ scheme evaluates the represented attachment relationship 7.97, df ¼ 1, p ¼ .005, OR ¼ 4.07) and VQ (Wald ¼ 5.70, as reflected in the characters’ behavior, as well as in the df ¼ 1, p < .05, OR ¼ .91). Thus, boys were 4 times more organization and coherence of the narrative. In addition, likely than girls to be insecure (disorganized) and children specific aspects of child behavior during story completion with higher verbal abilities were somewhat less likely to are also scored from videotapes. The MCAST coding produce insecure attachment narratives, while cumulative scheme allows identification of four attachment classifica- life stress was not significantly related to the 6-year attach- tions and disorganization scoring on a 9-point scale. ment status. Non-significant interaction terms indicated Twenty-nine difficult-to-code cases were control-coded by that better verbal capacities facilitated presenting a secure J. Green resulting in an 89.7% agreement for the four-way attachment narrative regardless of child gender, thus not classifications. As part of the data collection, children’s explaining girls’ higher rate of security. mental abilities were assessed by the R-WISC, and VQ In the following sections, we attempt to put our finding scores were used to test whether individual variation in lan- of a gender-biased distribution of attachment classifications guage abilities influenced children’s capacities to produce into the context of current literature by reviewing studies coherent narratives. As a measure of contextual risk in the assessing attachment using story stem techniques and families, maternal reports of major negative life events of reporting gender differences. •2 2013 BULLETIN Number 1 Serial No. 63 80 N=24 70 60 N=23 50 N=18 40 Boy Percentage 30 Girl N=7 20 N=7 N=2 N=2 10 N=1 0 Secure Avoidant Ambivalent Disorganised MCAST classification Figure 1. Distribution of attachment classifications at 6 years by child gender (percentages within the genders). Are Gender Effects Sparse in Childhood Do attachment story stem narratives Attachment Studies? represent the true quality of relationships? Reports on gender effects have been increasing with the In studies conducted in non-clinical populations, gender growing number of story completion studies using dif- differences in attachment could not be linked to differential ferent attachment measures (Q-sort dimensions, a contin- parenting. Either parenting was not measured (e.g. uous security scale or attachment classifications). In Verschueren et al., 1996) or child gender was not associated several studies evaluating narratives on dimensional mea- with parents’ self-reported attitudes (e.g. Stadelmann et al., sures, girls were found to represent more relationship- 2007). Studies conducted with children developing in oriented themes in more coherent ways, while boys adverse conditions, however, can shed light on potential dis- played out more non-interpersonal and aggressive con- crepancies between represented relationship quality and tents (e.g.
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