Gender and Attachment Representations in the Preschool Years

Comparisons Between Five Countries

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2314151
AutoresBlaise Pierrehumbert (0000-0003-3223-965X, University of Lausanne, autor de correspondencia), Maria Pia Santelices (0000-0001-7473-1525, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile), Margarita Ibáñez (0000-0002-1659-3600, Hopital Universitario San Juan de Dios), Lourdes Ibáñez (0000-0003-4595-7191, Hospital San Juan de Dios), Maika Alberdi (Hopital Universitario San Juan de Dios), Barbara Ongari (Università di Trento), I Roskam (0000-0002-1449-1133, UCLouvain), Marie Stievenart (0000-0001-6345-952X, UCLouvain), Rosario Spencer (0000-0002-4546-4226, Catholic University of the Maule), Andrés Fresno Rodríguez (University of Talca), Andres Fresno (0000-0003-0916-504X, University of Talca), Ayala Borghini (University of Lausanne)
Año2009
Volumen40
Número4
Páginas543-566
Fecha de publicación2009-07-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Cross-Cultural Psychology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0022-0221 • E-ISSN: 1552-5422
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0022022109335181
OpenAlexW2134316549
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas18
Referencias citadas73

Bowlby proposed that the individual's social experiences, as early as in infancy, contribute to the construction of Internal Working Models (IWMs) of attachment, which will later guide the individual's expectations and behaviors in close relationships all along his or her life. The qualitative, individual characteristics of these models reflect the specificity of the individual's early experiences with attachment figures. The attachment literature globally shows that the qualities of IWMs are neither gender specific nor cultural specific. Procedures to evaluate IWMs in adulthood have been well established, based on narrative accounts of childhood experiences. Narrative procedures at earlier ages (e.g., in the preschool years) have been proposed, such as Bretherton's Attachment Story Completion Task (ASCT), to evaluate attachment representations. More than 500 ASCT narratives of preschoolers, coming from five different countries, have been collected, in the perspective of examining possible interactions between gender and culture regarding attachment representations. A specific Q-Sort coding procedure (CCH) has been used to evaluate several dimensions of the narratives. Girls' narratives appeared as systematically more secure than those of same-age boys, whatever their culture. The magnitude of gender differences, however, varied between countries. Taylor's model of gender-specific responses to stress and Harwood's and Posada's hypothesis on inter-cultural differences regarding caregiving are evoked to understand the differences across gender and countries

Attachment theory · Coding (social sciences · Developmental psychology · Narrative · Perspective (graphical · Social science · Sociology · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development · Family Dynamics and Relationships · Psychology · Social Psychology