Attachment behavior and socialibility with strangers in premature and fullterm infants

Twenty premature and 20 fullterm infants participated in study of stranger sociability and infant-mother attachment. The preterms were born 4–10 weeks early and had a mean birth weight of 1990 grams. The two groups of infants did not differ on variables such as SES or time between hospital discharge and laboratory assessment. Stranger sociability was assessed in the Stevenson and Lamb (1979) procedure, and security of attachment in the Strange Situation (Ainsworth & Wittig, 1969). Mothers also completed questionnaires on child-rearing attitudes, perinatal anxiety, and infant temperament. Results showed that birth status was unrelated to both attachment and sociability. Securely attached infants were more sociable, however, and were perceived as more “easy” than insecurely attached infants. Difficult infants were less sociable than infants perceived as easy.     

The influence of Japanese mothers' styles of emotional expression on thirteen-month-old infants' reactions to a stranger

The present study investigated the hypothesized influence of mothers' styles of emotional expression on infants' responses to the stranger in Episode 3, the Ainsworth Strange Situation. One hundred and thirty-five mothers volunteered for this experiment with their 13-month-olds. The mothers' answers on an expression style questionnaire (EESQ) were factor analysed. According to their mothers' factor scores, infants were divided into four groups, those having (a) expressive type mothers (N = 40), (b) suppressive type mothers (N = 39), (c) positive expressive type mothers (N = 31), and (d) negative expressive type mothers (N = 25). The infants' behaviours were analysed in 5-sec intervals. The infants having expressive type mothers showed a strong interest in the stranger and interacted with her willingly. The infants having suppressive type mothers exhibited less smiling and much freezing behaviour. The infants having positive expressive type mothers reacted with more smiling, much bodily contact behaviour with the mother and less crying. The infants having negative expressive type mothers showed more often crying and frequent head orientation towards the stranger.     

Attachment concerns of mothers as manifested in parental,spousal, and friendship relationships

The present study examined the relation between attachment concerns of mothers and three of their close relationships: with their husband, best woman friend, and infant. Forty-live mothers completed an Attachment Concerns Questionnaire based on the Hazan and Shaver attachment measure, and the Sharabany Intimacy scale regarding their relationships with their husband and with their same-sex best friend; they were also observed with their infants (aged 14 to 22 months) in the Ainsworth Strange Situation procedure. Mothers’attachment concerns were significantly correlated both to their infants’attachment classifications and to reunion scores in the Strange Situation procedure (e.g., concern with closeness was positively correlated with avoidance; fear of abandonment was positively correlated with avoidance and resistance). Intimacy with husband and best woman friend were also correlated with mothers’attachment concerns (e.g., concern with closeness was negatively correlated with intimacy with the husband and fear of abandonment was negatively correlated with intimacy with the best friend). The findings are discussed in terms of the concept of an internal working model of attachment, and, in light of the similarity and the modular hypotheses regarding the nature of relationships and concordance among relationships.     

Transmission of attachment across three generations

A low-risk Finnish sample (N _total = 135) of parents expecting their first child and maternal grandmothers was followed from pregnancy until the child was 3 years old. The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) was used to assess attachment in mothers during the last trimester of pregnancy, and maternal grandmothers. The Strange Situation Procedure (SSP) was used to assess attachment in infants at 12 months, and the Preschool Assessment of Attachment (PAA) at 3 years. Mothers' AAI classifications (3-category) during pregnancy predicted infants' SSP classifications (3-category) in 76% of cases, and the 3-year-old children's PAA classifications (3-category) in 58% of cases. Grandmothers' AAI classifications predicted infants' SSP classifications in 48% of cases, but the 3-year-old children's PAA classifications in 72% of cases. Using log-linear analysis, it was shown that a simple model accounted for transmission of attachment across three generations when the children were 3 years. Even though the results indicated continuity across generations, the correspondences were slightly weaker than those obtained by Benoit and Parker in their 3-generational study. The results are discussed in terms of the prototype view, the rapid contextual changes seen across 3 generations in Finland, the size of the sample, and the comparability of the DMM to other assessment methods of attachment.     

Strange situation behavior of infants with adolescent mothers

Forty 6-month-old infants and their adolescent mothers were observed interacting at home and in Ainsworth's Strange Situation procedure when the infants were 14 months old. There were significantly more A-group infants (45%) and fewer C-group infants (3%) at 14 months in this sample of adolescent mothers than in other samples of adult mothers. Furthermore, A-group attachments were more common when levels of dyadic engagement at 6 months had been lower, and future A-group infants were less vocal at 6 months than were future B-group infants. At 6 months, mothers of future B-group infants provided more care than did mothers of future A-group infants. These findings provide some support for claims that adolescent mothers provide parenting of lower quality than adult mothers and that quality of early interactions may predict subsequent infant behavior in the Strange Situation.     

On individual differences in strange situation behavior: Categorical and continuous measurement systems in a cross-cultural data set

Recent discussions of attachment research methodology have questioned the appropriateness of measuring individual differences in Strange Situation behavior in terms of the avoidant, secure, and resistant categories. Continuous, factor-analytically derived latent variables have been proposed as an alternative. The validity of the traditional categorical measurement system was investigated through a cluster analysis of 216 11- to 13-month-old American, Swedish, and Israeli infants' social interactive behaviors in the reunion episodes of the Strange Situation. These analyses indicated that differences within the secure group based on variation in proximity-seeking and contact-maintaining behavior are more prominent than differences between the secure infants and the insecure infants. Moreover, similarity among infants was based on the infants' cultures as well as their membership in the avoidant, secure, and resistant groups. The alternative of continuous, latent-variable measurements was studied using confirmatory factor analyses on the same data. These analyses demonstrated that there are at least two dimensions in the infants' reunion behavior, but the structure of these dimensions varied across cultures. The results of both analyses suggest that there are substantial cultural differences in the patterning of individual differences in Strange Situation behavior.     

Sex differences in responses to the stranger in the strange situation

Children are exposed to differences in adult interactive styles from an early age. The Ainsworth Strange Situation. designed as a standard measure to activate attachment behaviors in the young child, allows us to examine the child's reaction to individual differences in strangers' styles. In the present study, the effect of 11 different strangers was examined to determine if different stranger styles influenced the scoring of behavioral ratings of the child's behavior in the Strange Situation. Boys and girls reacted differently to the different strangers. Eighteen-month-old children showed more variations in their reactions to different interactional styles than did 12-month-olds. Boys showed more resistance and avoidance to strangers who used more direction and initiation. Girls did not react this way. The results are discussed in terms of the child's expectations of sex-determined styles of interaction learned from past social interactions.This research was supported by Grant MH 37911 to the senior author from the Behavioral Sciences Research Branch, Family Processes Division, NIMH, U.S. PHS and Grant HD 17571 from the National Institute of Child Health and Development.     

Attachment,culture, and the caregiving system: The cultural patterning of everyday experiences among Anglo and Puerto Rican mother–infant pairs

This investigation focuses on cultural differences in the relationship between maternal sensitivity, emotional expression, and control strategies during the first year of life and infant attachment outcomes at 12 months. Participants were middle‐class Puerto Rican and Anglo mother–infant pairs (N = 60). Ratings of physical control, emotional expression, and maternal sensitivity during mother–infant interactions in five everyday home settings, videotaped when the infants were 4, 8, and 12 months old, were examined in combination with 12‐month Strange Situation classifications. Results suggest that physical control shows a different pattern of relatedness to maternal sensitivity, emotional expression, and attachment outcomes among the Puerto Rican compared to the Anglo mothers in this study. These findings have implications for practitioners and researchers interested in normative parenting among diverse cultural groups. ©2003 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

Consistency and inconsistency in infant emotional and social interactive behavior across contexts and caregivers

This study examined consistency in infant emotional and social interactive behavior in stressful and nonstressful situations with mothers and fathers. Infants were seen at 12 and 13 months, once with each parent. Emotion was assessed during free play and the Strange Situation. Strange Situation social interactive behaviors were also examined. Results demonstrated that (a) proximity seeking and contact maintaining are consistent cross-parent, (b) emotion is more consistent from free play to the Strange Situation with the father than with the mother, and (c) emotion is primarily consistent cross-parent within the Strange Situation, not in free play. These results suggest both infant- and relationship-based determinants of behavior within the Strange Situation. The greater cross-context consistency in infant emotion with the father is interpreted as supportive of the view that infant—father interactions reflect primarily affiliative, rather than attachment, relationships.     

Parent mind-mindedness,sensitivity, and infant affect: Implications for attachment with mothers and fathers

Previous research examining links between parenting and attachment has focused on behavioral aspects of parenting such as sensitivity. However, by assessing how parents reflect on infants’ mental states (mind-mindedness) we gain a broader understanding of parenting and how it impacts attachment. Mothers, fathers, and their infants (N = 135) participated in the Still Face Paradigm (SFP) at 3-, 5-, and 7- months of age, and the Strange Situation with mothers at 12 months and fathers at 14 months. Parent sensitivity and infant affect were coded from the SFP and all videos were transcribed and later coded for parents’ use of appropriate and non-attuned mind-mindedness toward their infants. Attachment with each parent was coded from the Strange Situation. Mixed effects models examined trajectories of parents’ mind-mindedness in relation to parent sensitivity and infant affect across attachment groups. Significant differences between parent gender and attachment category were detected. Specifically, parents who were less sensitive were also less mind-minded toward insecure-avoidant infants; parents used more non-attuned mind-mindedness when infants had higher negative affect. Findings suggest that, in addition to parent sensitivity, parents’ use of appropriate and non-attuned mind-mindedness during a parent-infant interaction provides insight into the developing attachment relationship for mothers and fathers.     

Attachment in low‐SES rural Appalachian infants: Contextual,infant, and maternal interaction risk and protective factors

Attachment classifications were obtained for 95 low‐socioeconomic‐status (SES) rural Appalachian infants in the Strange Situation procedure at 15 months. The distribution of secure (B) and insecure (A, C, D) infants was similar to other low‐SES samples and significantly different from low‐risk samples. Levels of contextual and infant risk, together with maternal responsiveness to crying and pattern of sensitivity from 4 to 9 months, predicted attachment security. High social support, when examined as a protective factor, related to reduced contextual risk, but not to increased likelihood of security. Exploratory discriminant function analyses showed that infants in secure relationships differed in positive directions on contextual and maternal interactional factors. Insecure‐organized (A and C) infants experienced contextual and maternal interaction risks, while insecure‐disorganized (D) infants were best distinguished by infant characteristics, including greater likelihood of being male and low use of mother as a secure base at 9 months. ©2001 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

The relation between infants' self/mother knowledge and three attachment categories

The relation between attachment and knowledge of self and mother was assessed in 1-to 2-year-old infants. Infant behavior in the Strange Situation was classified according to three attachment categories: secure, insecure-avoidant, and insecure-resistant. Infants' featural knowledge was measured by featural recognition, name, possession, and gender. Infants who were securely or resistantly attached had significantly more complex knowledge of mother than self, whereas avoidantly attached infants did not differ in the complexity of knowledge of self and mother. Securely attached infants had more complex self-knowledge than both categories of insecurely attached infants. In contrast, avoidantly attached infants had less complex knowledge of mother than did securely or resistantly attached infants. These data are discussed in the context of how infants' strategies of coping with stress are related to the acquisition of self- and mother-knowledge.     

Genetic and caregiving-based contributions to infant attachment: unique associations with distress reactivity and attachment security

In the longitudinal study reported here, we examined genetic and caregiving-based contributions to individual differences in infant attachment classifications. For 154 mother-infant pairs, we rated mothers' responsiveness to their 6-month-old infants during naturalistic interactions and classified infants' attachment organization at 12 and 18 months using the Strange Situation procedure. These infants were later genotyped with respect to the serotonin-transporter-linked polymorphic region (5-HTTLPR). Maternal responsiveness uniquely predicted infants' attachment security. Infants' 5-HTTLPR variation uniquely predicted their subtype of attachment security at 12 months and their subtype of attachment insecurity at 12 and 18 months. The short allele for 5-HTTLPR was associated with attachment classifications characterized by higher emotional distress. These findings suggest that 5-HTTLPR variation contributes to infants' emotional reactivity and that the degree to which caregivers are responsive influences how effectively infants use their caregivers for emotion regulation. Theoretical implications for the study of genetic and caregiving influences are discussed.     

Mothers' insightfulness regarding their infants' internal experience: relations with maternal sensitivity and infant attachment

This study examined the associations among mothers' insightfulness into their infants' internal experience, mothers' sensitivity to their infants' signals, and infants' security of attachment to their mothers. The insightfulness of 129 mothers of 12-month-old infants was assessed by showing mothers 3 videotaped segments of observations of their infants and themselves and interviewing them regarding their infants' and their own thoughts and feelings. Interviews were classified into 1 insightful and 3 noninsightful categories. Mothers' sensitivity was assessed during play sessions at home and at the laboratory, and infant-mother attachment was assessed with the Strange Situation. Mothers classified as positively insightful were rated as more sensitive and were more likely to have securely attached children than were mothers not classified as positively insightful. Insightfulness also accounted for variance in attachment beyond the variance explained by maternal sensitivity. These findings add an important dimension to research on caregiving, suggesting that mothers' seeking of explanations for the motives underlying their infants' behavior is related to both maternal sensitivity and infant attachment.     

Affective expression among preterm infants of varying levels of biological risk

This investigation examines the association between risk status and the quality of emotional arousal and regulation among preterm infants in the second year of life. The behavior of 55 preterm infants stratified into three risk groups by severity and chronicity of respiratory illness was recorded during the procedures of the Strange Situation. Measures of emotional responsiveness included temporal and intensity features of facial and vocal expressions as well as concurrent activity with toys. Significant relationships between neonatal risk status and these expressive and regulatory features were observed. Infants in the High-Risk group (N = 16) differed from healthy Low-Risk infants (N = 23) and from those in the Moderate-Risk group (N = 16). The High-Risk infants showed a greater sensitivity to distress arousal at low levels of stress and less ability to modulate distress once aroused. High-Risk infants also demonstrated significantly less adaptive play with toys than the other preterm infants. In short, this study suggests that, when placed under stress, High-Risk preterm infants in their second year of life become more distressed and demonstrate less ability to recover from this distress and effectively re-engage their environment than preterm infants born at lower risk.     

A social‐contextual understanding of concordance and discordance between maternal prenatal representations of the infant and infant–mother attachment

This prospective study examined the relationship between maternal prenatal representations of the infant and later infant–mother attachment, including contextual factors related to concordance and discordance among dyads over time. Participants were 173 pregnant women between the ages of 18 and 40 who were interviewed during their last trimester of pregnancy and 2 and 13 months after birth. Maternal representations were assessed by the Working Model of the Child Interview during pregnancy (WMCI; C.H. Zeanah, D. Benoit, L. Hirshberg, M.L. Barton, & C. Regan, 1994), and infant–mother attachment was assessed through the Strange Situation procedure (M.D.S. Ainsworth, M. Blehar, E. Waters, & S. Wall, 1978) when infants were 13 months old. There was substantial discordance between maternal and infant classifications, although a significant concordance rate was found when classifications were collapsed into balanced/secure and nonbalanced/insecure groups based on prenatal representations and postnatal infant attachment groups (60%; χ² = 6.90, p < .01; κ .20). As expected, discordance between maternal representations and infant–mother attachment was meaningfully related to contextual risk factors, maternal depression, and infant behaviors.     

Relations between behavioral reactivity at 4 months and attachment classification at 14 months in a selected sample

Attachment at 14 months of age was examined in a sample of infants who had been selected for high or low levels of positive or negative affective reactivity and motor activity at 4 months of age. The type of early emotional reactivity was not clearly associated with attachment security or insecurity. The proposal of Belsky and Rovine [Belsky, J., & Rovine, M. (1987). Temperament and attachment security in the strange situation: An empirical rapprochement. Child Development, 58, 787–795] that infants classified as B3/B4 or C1/C2 are temperamentally more negatively reactive than those classified as A1/A2 or B1/B2 was supported. Compared with infants who showed high levels of positive affect and infants who scored low on affective reactivity, infants who showed high levels of negative affect in response to stimulation at 4 months of age were significantly more likely to be classified as B3/B4 or C1/C2 in the Strange Situation at 14 months of age. These findings are discussed in the context of prior inconsistent findings about the relations between temperament and groups of attachment sub-classifications. The role of different methods of assessing temperament and the importance of selected samples in clarifying such relations is discussed.     

Perceptions of infant boys' behavior and mental health: Relation to infant attachment

Two studies were conducted to determine the impact of infants' attachment classifications and behaviors on naive adults' impressions of their behavior and mental health. In Study 1, three groups of 44 adults viewed a videotape of episode 8 of the Strange Situation for either an avoidant, a resistant, or a secure male infant. After viewing the videotape, they made judgments about aspects of the infant's mental health. Adults viewed the resistant baby as less socially competent and more negative in affect than the other two babies and the secure baby as the least independent of the three babies. Parents rated babies as more intelligent than did nonparents. In Study 2, 15 parents were matched on race and gender with 15 nonparents. All adults viewed a videotape of the reunions of two secure, two avoidant, and two resistant male infants. Avoidant babies were viewed as more socially competent and independent than secure babies and the C2 baby was viewed as the least intelligent, least independent, least socially competent, and most affectively negative of the infants. Results are interpreted as underscoring the need to educate parents and paraprofessionals about the importance of infant distress and physical contact with parents.     

Sex differences in infant-mother attachment

A sex difference in security of infant attachment was found in a sample of 52 infant-mother dyads. The infants were enrolled in early care and education programs within a predominantly small-town geographic area in the southwest. Security of attachment was assessed using the Strange Situation procedure. Male infants (76%) were significantly more likely to be securely attached than female infants (39%). No other variables related to the infants' early care and education experience or mothers' age, race, marital status, and education were significantly associated with infants' attachment status.     

The influence of attachment and temperament on venipuncture distress in 14-month-old infants: the Generation R Study

Objective

This study examined the effects of attachment and temperament on infant distress during venipuncture.

Method

The study was embedded in the Generation R Study, a prospective population-based study. Two different research procedures (i.e., blood sampling and the Ainsworth Strange Situation Procedure) yielded measures of venipuncture distress and attachment security and disorganization in 246 infants aged 14 months. Four temperament traits (distress to limitations, fear, recovery from distress, and sadness) were assessed using the maternally reported Infant Behavior Questionnaire - Revised, at the age of 6 months.

Results

There were no differences between mean levels of distress during venipuncture in infants classified as having insecure attachment, but there was a trend for disorganized attachment. The temperament traits were not related to distress. However, children with a disorganized attachment and higher temperamental fear had more venipuncture distress.

Conclusion

When different risk factors are present simultaneously, infant distress is heightened.