Associations between parental and child attachment representations

Attach Hum Dev. 2004 Sep;6(3):305-25. doi: 10.1080/14616730412331281557.

Abstract

In the present article on intergenerational transmission of attachment representations, we use mothers' and fathers' Adult Attachment Interview classifications to predict a 3-year-old's responses to the Attachment Story Completion Task (ASCT). We present a Q-sort coding procedure for the ASCT, which was developed for children as young as three. The Q-sort yields scores on four attachment dimensions (security, deactivation, hyperactivation, and disorganization). One-way ANOVAs revealed significant mother-child associations for each dimension, although results for the hyperactivation and disorganization dimensions were significant only according to contrast tests. Conversely, no father-child association was found, regardless of the dimension considered. Findings are discussed in terms of the respective part played by each parent in their children's emotional development.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Child, Preschool
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Middle Aged
  • Object Attachment*
  • Parent-Child Relations*
  • Reactive Attachment Disorder / diagnosis*
  • Reactive Attachment Disorder / psychology
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Surveys and Questionnaires