Attachment & Human Development最新文献

This paper reports on Adult Attachment Interviews (AAIs) obtained from a low-risk sample of 51 pregnant women expecting their first child who were interviewed again when the child was five years of age. This is the first report of test-retest results that extends over five years that includes the transition to motherhood. Results suggest significant levels of continuity at the level of AAI classifications with three-way stability being 90% and two-way stability being 88%. When change was observed, it was more likely to be a move toward rather than away from security. At the level of dimensional scores, significant changes indicated a softening stance with higher coherence ratings, lower idealization scores, and less insistence on an inability to recall. This move toward a significantly more balanced state of mind regarding attachment was most evident among those mothers who maintained or became autonomous-secure.

This study examined how strategies parents use to maintain a dismissing state of mind while discussing their childhood relationship with their parents relate to the quality of their relationship with their partners and children. During the third trimester, 125 couples were administered the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) to assess adults' states of mind with respect to relationships with their parents during childhood. Marital quality was assessed via observations of couple interactions during discussion tasks and coded for emotional attunement. At 24 months, researchers assessed caregiver sensitivity by observing mother-toddler and father-toddler interactions. Fathers' idealization of their own father forecasted lower caregiving sensitivity with their 24-month-old children, and this relationship was mediated by emotional attunement in the marriage. This finding did not hold for mothers. For both mothers and fathers, higher marital emotional attunement related to more sensitive caregiving. These findings are discussed in the context of gender socialization. Interventions to disrupt the transmission of negative family interactions are also discussed.

This study investigated the influence of parents' Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) responses prior to the birth of a first child, on self-reported mental health symptoms of the first-born child in mid-adolescence. The sample comprised 51 first-born children aged 16 years, their mothers and fathers from a low-risk community urban sample, White, British and 70% middle class. Mothers' responses to the AAI were the strongest predictor of their adolescent children's self-reported mental health symptoms. Children's infant-mother or infant-father attachment patterns were not predictive of these 16-year outcomes, but mothers' insecure (primarily dismissing) attachment representations predicted children's externalizing, aggressive, and delinquent difficulties (though not internalizing difficulties) at 16 years. If one or both parents were autonomous-secure in their response to the AAI then their adolescent children reported significantly fewer mental health problems. Discussion focuses on thepredictive validity of the Adult Attachment Interview, Mary Main's legacy, and possible meanings (and limitations) of the results.

Frightening maternal behavior is linked to infant disorganization, which predicts child behavioral problems. We examined continuity in frightening maternal behavior across the first 2 years by developing a new measure of anomalous/frightening (AN/FR) behavior that incorporates changes in parent-child interactions as children acquire symbolic representation. Maternal AN/FR behavior in toddlerhood also was examined in relation to later internalizing and externalizing symptoms. First-time mothers (N = 125) completed the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) prenatally, and mother-child dyads were observed interacting at 8 months, in Strange Situations at 12-15 months, and playing at 24 months. Teachers rated children's behavior problems at 7 years. Mothers classified as Unresolved on the AAI displayed more Frightening (FR) behavior at 8 months. Mothers' FR behavior predicted both attachment disorganization at 12-15 months and maternal AN/FR behavior at 24 months, which then predicted children's internalizing symptoms at age 7. Infant disorganization was indirectly related to internalizing symptoms, mediated by maternal AN/FR behavior.

Brett Kahr has referred to the death of Mary Main as the loss of "the queen of attachment research." However, how well is Main's work actually known? In this portrait and tribute, I argue that Main's transformative contributions have become a taken-for-granted part of the basic environment of attachment research, but that readers have faced obstacles in understanding and responding to their strengths and limitations. Drawing from interviews with Main, in this paper I describe some of her early life experiences and mental and physical health challenges, which she felt had influenced what was possible for her in her research. I then highlight less well-known aspects of her ideas regarding the role of attention within attachment strategies, the nature of disorganised attachment, the implications of alarming caregiving behaviours, and what is ultimately measured by the Adult Attachment Interview. My goal throughout is to help reader see both how much Main's rich and exciting works still have to teach, and identify their many loose threads still to follow.

Among Mary Main's many vital contributions to the field of attachment is the idea that human infants develop adaptive conditional strategies in the service of maintaining proximity to a secure base in light of a particular caregiving history. In this tribute paper, we describe Main's original theorizing, which delineated three types of conditional strategies: a primary secure base strategy and two secondary strategies of minimizing or maximizing the naturally occurring output of the attachment behavioral system, using a variety of cognitive, affective, and behavioral means. We review the large body of evidence for minimizing and maximizing strategies in infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Across a range of studies - including age groups and methodologies extending well beyond Main's original work with infants - there is remarkable convergence of findings that support Main's ideas. We conclude with several promising directions in implementing Main's groundbreaking ideas to enrich future research and clinical applications.

Our memories reflect professional meetings and our private relationship with Mary Main for over more than 50 years, working, travelling jointly, and celebrating together. Klaus met Mary Main at Mary Ainsworth's lab in 1973 in Baltimore. Mary Main's and our own longitudinal studies both started at the same time in which attachment research became a focus of several research groups. Still unpublished research results were eagerly shared. Mary supported our wider view of attachment by emphasizing the importance of exploratory play, enthusiasm, expression, and quality of communication. She also explored infants' unexpected avoidance of their mothers. Some infant's resisted traditional classification and were described as disorganized/ disoriented by her. Later in Regensburg, Mary trained our research group in assessing memories of attachment experiences of young adults. When Klaus retired in 2003, Mary gave a warm review of a long time of mutual devotion in the service of attachment development.

Mary Main's written work profoundly changed the direction of attachment research through her publications and through her teachings. The current study describes the scientific impact of her her published and unpublished work. We identified 85 such works. Web of Sciences contained k = 7,571 citations to these works from by 13,398 unique authors. The topics of citing work clustered around clinical psychological research, early dyadic relationships, romantic attachment, traumatic experiences, and the adult attachment interview itself. Based on co-citation patterns, Main shared an intellectual space with authors known for developmental psychopathology and child development, parent-child relationships, adult attachment, psychodynamic theorizing, and reciprocity in interaction and infant mental health. We discuss the impact of the "move to the level of representation" and how new ties with researchers unfamiliar with these ideas will be important to realize unused potential in the ideas and methods given to the field by Mary Main.

This article examines Mary Main's impact on attachment research in Israel and vice versa, focusing on her contributions: the disorganized attachment classification (D) and the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). Israeli research spans Jewish and Arab populations, individuals with special needs, and trauma-affected groups, testing the Normativity, Sensitivity, and Competence hypotheses. While confirming traditional findings, some studies revealed deviations, possibly influenced by Israel's unique sociocultural/historical context. Some studies found an overrepresentation of disorganized and ambivalent attachment classifications, possibly linked to regional conflicts. The absence of a distinction between these two classifications in certain outcomes, especially disrupted maternal communication-a precursor to D-challenges the clear-cut classifications found in Western studies. Finally, a Holocaust Project provides unique insights, identifying the absence of intergenerational transmission of an unresolved state of mind from Holocaust survivors to descendants and revealing distinctive AAI classifications, namely, Absence of Attachment Representations and Failed Mourning, all inviting further study.