Attachment & Human Development最新文献

Little is known about the significance of mothers' attachment for neurobiological responding during interactions with infants. To address this gap, this study examined links between mothers' (N = 139) attachment representations and dynamic change in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) while interacting with infants in the Still-Face Procedure (SFP). Mothers higher on secure base script knowledge (SBSK) exhibited greater RSA reactivity during the SFP characterized by lower RSA during normal play, higher RSA during the still-face, and lower RSA during reunion. Findings indicate that mothers higher on SBSK exhibit RSA responding expected to support active behavioral coping during normal play and reunion - consistent with the need to engage infants in social interaction - and RSA responding during the still-face expected to support efforts to calm the body and empathize with their infant during this distressing social disruption. Findings advance knowledge of the significance of adult attachment for the neurobiology of caregiving.

Brain-to-brain coupling during co-viewing of video stimuli reflects similar intersubjective mentalisation processes. During an everyday joint activity of watching video stimuli (television shows) with her child, an anxiously attached mother's preoccupation with her child is likely to distract her from understanding the mental state of characters in the show. To test the hypothesis that reduced coupling in the medial prefrontal cortex (PFC) would be observed with increasing maternal attachment anxiety (MAA), we profiled mothers' MAA using the Attachment Style Questionnaire and used functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) to assess PFC coupling in 31 mother-child dyads while they watched three 1-min animation videos together. Reduced coupling was observed with increasing MAA in the medial right PFC cluster which is implicated in mentalisation processes. This result did not survive control analyses and should be taken as preliminary. Reduced coupling between anxiously-attached mothers and their children during co-viewing could undermine quality of shared experiences.

Attachment is a motivational system promoting felt security to a caregiver resulting in a persistent internal working model of interpersonal behavior. Attachment styles are developed in early social environments and predict future health and development outcomes with potential biological signatures, such as epigenetic modifications like DNA methylation (DNAm). Thus, we hypothesized infant DNAm would associate with toddler attachment styles. An epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) of blood DNAm from 3-month-old infants was regressed onto children's attachment style from the Strange Situation Procedure at 22-months at multiple DNAm Cytosine-phosphate-Guanine (CpG) sites. The 26 identified CpGs associated with proinflammatory immune phenotypes and cognitive development. In post-hoc analyses, only maternal cognitive-growth fostering, encouraging intellectual exploration, contributed. For disorganized children, DNAm-derived cell-type proportions estimated higher monocytes -cells in immune responses hypothesized to increase with early adversity. Collectively, these findings suggested the potential biological embedding of both adverse and advantageous social environments as early as 3-months-old.

In this study, we sought to expand on what is currently known regarding autonomic nervous system (ANS) reactivity in middle childhood as a function of attachment. ANS activity includes multiple indices - respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is an index of parasympathetic nervous system activation (PNS) and electrodermal activity (EDA) is an index of sympathetic nervous system activation (SNS). Children (N = 103) completed Child Attachment Interviews and read vignettes describing situations aimed to activate attachment needs (NEED; e.g., getting hurt, which can elicit need for comfort or assistance) and help-seeking (HS; when children experience need and seek comfort from attachment figures), while SNS and PNS reactivity were monitored. Attachment was not associated with children's SNS or PNS reactivity during NEED, but attachment was associated with physiological reactivity during HS: Dismissing attachment was associated with greater SNS activation (higher EDA) and preoccupied attachment with PNS deactivation (lower RSA, greater vagal withdrawal) during HS.

Understanding hostile intent attribution (HIA) seems important for prevention of problems in social adaptation. This study aimed to explore whether HIA in childhood is determined by both a cognitive factor (i.e. intellectual disability) and an affective factor (i.e. attachment representations). One hundred and eight 8- to 12-year-old children (54 with intellectual disability and 54 with typical development) passed the Attachment Story Completion Task and the Intention Attribution Test for Children. Results indicated that in ambiguous situations, attachment disorganization was associated with HIA, whereas intellectual disability was not. In nonintentional situations, both attachment hyperactivation and intellectual disability were linked with HIA. These results highlight the importance of helping children develop organized attachment representations and optimal activation of their attachment system to prevent social maladaptation.

Brooding rumination is a maladaptive form of emotion regulation and confers a risk for psychopathology. Insecure attachment and low cognitive self-regulation are important antecedents of brooding. Yet, little is known about the developmental interplay between these two systems. Thus, we tested how children's attachment and cognitive self-regulation, conceptualized as effortful control (EC), interact to predict brooding. The participants in the three-wave longitudinal study were n = 157 children (10 to 14 years) and their mothers. Children reported their attachment and brooding, and mothers reported children's EC. Results showed that children with low avoidance received benefit from high EC to decrease brooding, whereas children with high anxiety brooded irrespective of EC. Thus, high EC may foster constructive emotion regulation among securely attached children, whereas the beneficial effects of high EC on emotional functioning seem to be overridden by insecurity. The functional role of cognitive self-regulation on different attachment strategies is discussed.

Clinical practitioners are frequently encouraged, through literature, training, and policy, to learn, understand, refer to and use their knowledge of attachment theory and research when working to meet the needs of children and families. However, there has been very little empirical study of how practitioners understand and perceive the relevance of attachment concepts and methods. Q-methodology was used to examine the perceptions of attachment knowledge and its applications for practice among 30 UK clinicians working with children and an international group of 31 attachment researchers. Factor analysis revealed three perspectives, described as: i) pragmatic, developmental, and uncertain, ii) academic, and iii) autodidactic and therapeutic. Participants agreed on core tenants of theory, their aspirations for clinical practice and the inaccessibility of current assessment measures for practitioners. Yet they diverged on their understandings of attachment insecurity, disorganisation, and the implications of both for various aspects of child development.

Maternal psychopathology given a history of maltreatment and domestic violence exposure increases the risk for child psychopathology. Infant social withdrawal is one warning sign of adverse developmental outcomes including child anxiety and depression. It remains unclear how maternal trauma-related psychopathology might affect infant social withdrawal six-months postpartum.

Methods: One-hundred ninety-five women and their six-month-old infants were studied in an at-risk community sample. Maternal trauma history, posttraumatic stress (PTSD) and major depressive (MDD) disorders were assessed. Maternal and infant behaviors were coded from videotaped interactions.

Results: Maternal trauma was correlated with atypical maternal behavior (AMB) and infant social withdrawal (p ≤ .001). PTSD and MDD, and comorbid PTSD/MDD predicted increased AMB (p ≤ .001) but only maternal MDD was predictive of infant social withdrawal (p ≤ .001). Effects of maternal MDD on infant withdrawal were mediated by AMB.

Conclusions: At six-months postpartum, maternal MDD was associated with infant withdrawal. AMB is an important target for early intervention.

Maternal sensitivity and disrupted communication are usually considered independently as antecedents of attachment security and attachment disorganization, respectively. This study examined whether considering them jointly allows specific predictions of attachment classifications. The sample (N = 159) was selected from a previous study conducted in Israel between 1991-1993, and over-represented disorganized and ambivalent attachment. Attachment was assessed at 12 months in the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP), sensitivity was assessed from free-play observations at 6 and 12 months, and disrupted communication was coded from the SSP. As hypothesized, high sensitivity and low disruption predicted secure attachment; low sensitivity and high disruption predicted disorganized-insecure attachment or ambivalent attachment; and high sensitivity and high disruption predicted disorganized-secure attachment. Low sensitivity and low disrupted communication did not predict avoidant attachment. The results show that combining maternal sensitivity and disrupted communication improves the precision in identifying maternal antecedents of attachment.