Glenn I Roisman
Biographic Data
| ID | 217516 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Glenn I Roisman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Glenn I |
| FAMILY NAME | Roisman |
| SIGNATURE | ROISMAN G I |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Minnesota |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6941-6560 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 63 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 477 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 63 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
Practitioner Review: Clinical insights from attachment theory and research for professionals working with young children and their families
Attachment theory, with its core concepts, perspectives, and insights developed over the past five decades, is influential for professionals working with young children. However, practitioners face challenges translating attachment theory and research into practical applications. This manifests in attachment myths, theoretical misinterpretations, and inconsistency of application. This state‐of‐the‐art review is authored by 47 attachment researche…
Genetic and environmental factors underlying the associations between attachment styles and mental and physical health
30), but little-to-no overlap among the environmental factors that contribute to attachment anxiety and physical health. Thus, the associations between attachment anxiety and physical health outcomes appear to be primarily attributable to a common or shared genetic liability. Attachment avoidance shared weak or near-zero associations with indicators of physical health. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved)
Teacher–student relationship quality and social, academic, and behavioral adjustment are associated within and between persons from kindergarten to grade 6
Although the significance of teacher-student relationships for children's development has long been of interest to developmental scientists, few prior studies have used modeling approaches that explicitly document the intraindividual, dynamic processes that link teacher-student relationships with children's adjustment. The present study used bias-adjusted Student-Teacher Relationship Scale (Pianta, 2001) scores to document the within-person devel…
A prospective longitudinal study of the associations between childhood and adolescent interpersonal experiences and adult attachment orientations
Attachment theory (Bowlby, 1973, 1980, 1969/1982) suggests that early interpersonal experiences lay the foundation for the ways people think, feel, and behave in close relationships throughout life. The present study examined this fundamental assumption, analyzing longitudinal data collected from 705 participants and their families over 3 decades, from the time participants were infants until they were approximately 30 years old ( M age = 28.6, S…
Maladaptive personality traits and older adult relationship satisfaction: A co‐twin control approach to understanding associations
OBJECTIVE: Maladaptive personality traits have been implicated in romantic relationship dissatisfaction, but the etiology of those links and the degree to which they extend to other types of relationships are unclear. The purpose of this study was to examine associations between maladaptive personality traits and satisfaction in various relationships using a co-twin control design to identify potential environmental contributions. METHOD: = 70.3)…
Using moderated nonlinear factor models to adjust for differential item functioning in the Student-Teacher Relationship Scale from kindergarten to Grade 6
Configurations of mother–child and father–child attachment relationships as predictors of child language competence: An individual participant data meta-analysis
An individual participant data meta-analysis was conducted to test pre-registered hypotheses about how the configuration of attachment relationships to mothers and fathers predicts children's language competence. Data from seven studies (published between 1985 and 2014) including 719 children (M age: 19.84 months; 51% female; 87% White) were included in the linear mixed effects analyses. Mean language competence scores exceeded the population ave…
Longitudinal Associations Between Scripted Attachment Representations in Late Adolescence and Depression in Adulthood in a Normative and a Higher-Risk Cohort
Attachment representations are increasingly operationalized as secure base script knowledge —one’s level of awareness of the temporal-causal schema that summarizes basic features of seeking and receiving effective support from caregivers when in distress. A method was recently developed to assess secure base script knowledge during the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI sbs ), though its predictive validity for mental health outcomes is largely unkn…
Which aspects of education are health protective? a life course examination of early education and adulthood cardiometabolic health in the 30-year study of early child care and Youth Development (Secc…
Findings point to the potential significance of early student social competence as a link to long-term health, possibly via the acquisition of resources needed for the maintenance of health, as well as through engagement in health behaviors supporting healthy eating. However, more research is needed to replicate these findings and to elaborate on the role of early student social competence and the pathways explaining its effects on cardiometaboli…
Genetic and environmental contributions to adult attachment styles: Evidence from the Minnesota Twin Registry
Attachment theory, as originally outlined by Bowlby (1973, 1980, 1969/1982), suggests that the ways people think, feel, and behave in close relationships are shaped by the dynamic interplay between their genes and their social environment. Research on adult attachment, however, has largely focused on the latter, providing only a partial picture of how attachment styles emerge and develop throughout life. The present research leveraged data from t…
Attachment relationship quality with mothers and fathers and child temperament: An individual participant data meta-analysis
0.19), suggesting that temperament plays a small yet significant role in child-mother/child-father insecure-resistant attachment relationships concordance. Taken together, results from this study prompt a more in-depth examination of the mechanism underlying the small yet significantly higher chance that children with increased negative emotionality have for developing multiple insecure-resistant attachment relationships. (PsycInfo Database Recor…
The Cambridge Handbook of the Development of Coping
Despite broad interest in how children and youth cope with stress and how others can support their coping, this is the first Handbook to consolidate the many theories and large bodies of research that contribute to the study of the development of coping. The Handbook's goal is field building - it brings together theory and research from across the spectrum of psychological, developmental, and related sciences to inform our understanding of coping…
The quality of early caregiving and teacher-student relationships in grade school independently predict adolescent academic achievement
Prior research has demonstrated that teacher-student relationships characterized by high levels of closeness and low levels of conflict are associated with higher levels of academic achievement among children. At the same time: (a) some research suggests that the quality of teacher-student relationships in part reflects the quality of early caregiving, and (b) the observed quality of early care by primary caregivers robustly predicts subsequent a…
Registered Reports in Child Development: Introduction to the Special Section
Registered Reports (RRs) are an emerging format for publishing empirical journal articles in which the decision to publish an article is based on sound conceptualization, methods, and planned analyses rather than the specific nature of the results. This article introduces the Special Section on Registered Reports in Child Development by describing what RRs are and why they are necessary, outlining the thought process that guided the Special Secti…
Does child-mother attachment predict and mediate language and cognitive outcomes? A series of meta-analyses
Formalizing theories of child development: Introduction to the special section
Here we introduce a Special Section of Child Development entitled "Formalizing Theories of Child Development." This Special Section features five papers that use mathematical models to advance our understanding of central questions in the study of child development. This landmark collection is timely: it signifies growing awareness that rigorous empirical bricks are not enough; we need solid theory to build the house. By stating theory in mathema…
Early maternal sensitivity and markers of physical health: Enduring or transient associations from childhood to adulthood
Individual differences in the quality of early experiences with primary caregivers have been reliably implicated in the development of socioemotional adjustment and, more recently, physical health. However, few studies have examined the development of such associations with physical health into the adult years. To that end, the current study used prospective, longitudinal data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Stud…
The predictive significance of fluctuations in early maternal sensitivity for secure base script knowledge and relationship effectiveness in adulthood
Attachment theory suggests that both the quality and consistency of early sensitive care should shape an individual's attachment working models and relationship outcomes across the lifespan. To date, most research has focused on the quality of early sensitive caregiving, finding that receiving higher quality care predicts more secure working models and better long-term relationship outcomes than receiving lower quality care. However, it remains u…
Early Childhood Antecedents of Dehumanization Perpetration in Adult Romantic Relationships
Data from the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation (MLSRA) were utilized to provide the first investigation into the early childhood antecedents of dehumanization (i.e., treating another as less than human) in adult romantic relationships. Drawing on a sample of 109 MLSRA participants, multiple assessments of maternal care and empathy were collected during infancy and early childhood. In adulthood, MLSRA participants and their roma…
Early life predictors of positive change during the coronavirus disease pandemic
Findings suggest that neighborhood disadvantage in childhood may shape prosocial responses to stress in adulthood, potentially through early life adaptions to stress that are protective when facing adversity. There are several notable implications of the study findings. Although adversity in early life has clear negative impacts, it is possible that adversity experiences may also provide opportunities to develop adaptive strategies that foster re…
Configurations of mother‐child and father‐child attachment as predictors of internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems: An individual participant data (IPD) meta‐analysis
An unsettled question in attachment theory and research is the extent to which children's attachment patterns with mothers and fathers jointly predict developmental outcomes. In this study, we used individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis to assess whether early attachment networks with mothers and fathers are associated with children's internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems. Following a pre-registered protocol, data from 9 st…
The significance of early temperamental reactivity for children’s social competence with peers: A meta-analytic review and comparison with the role of early attachment
Early temperamental reactivity and attachment security are key predictors of children's social competence with peers. Leveraging meta-analytic evaluation of the significance of early attachment for social competence already available (Groh et al., 2014), this quantitative review examined the significance of early temperamental reactivity for social competence with peers and compared the strength of this association with that for attachment. Based…
Disparities in Covid‐19–related stressful life events in the United States: Understanding who is most impacted
Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States have been exacerbated by pre-existing inequities in resources and opportunities, leaving the most vulnerable to face a multitude of hardships. The goal of the current study was to characterise COVID-19-related stressful life events in specific life domains and to identify the sociodemographic characteristics of individuals who are more likely to experience such events. Participants (n = 372, 5…
Early child care experiences and attachment representations at age 18 years: Evidence from the NICHD study of Early Child Care and Youth Development
The role of early child care experiences on the development of the mother-child attachment relationship has been studied extensively. However, no prospective studies of early child care have addressed how these experiences might be reflected in the content of attachment representations during adolescence and beyond. The goal of this study was to estimate relatively precise associations between child care quality, child care quantity, and type of …
Childhood abuse and neglect and self-reported symptoms of psychopathology through midlife
Although abuse and neglect in the early years of life have been reliably linked to poor mental health outcomes in childhood, only a few studies have examined whether the predictive significance of childhood abuse and neglect endures for symptoms of psychopathology into adulthood. Here we examined to what extent prospectively assessed child abuse and neglect is associated with self-reported symptoms of psychopathology measured from ages 23 through…
Developmental Cascades: Linking Academic Achievement and Externalizing and Internalizing Symptoms Over 20 Years
A developmental cascade model linking competence and symptoms was tested in a study of a normative, urban school sample of 205 children (initially 8 to 12 years old). Internalizing and externalizing symptoms and academic competence were assessed by multiple methods at the study outset and after 7, 10, and 20 years. A series of nested cascade models was tested through structural equation modeling. The final model indicated 2 hypothesized cascade e…
The legacy of early experiences in development: Formalizing alternative models of how early experiences are carried forward over time
Psychologists have long debated the role of early experience in social and cognitive development. However, traditional approaches to studying this issue are not well positioned to address this debate. The authors present simulations that indicate that the associations between early experiences and later outcomes should approach different asymptotic values across time, given alternative assumptions about the developmental significance of early exp…
Adult romantic relationships as contexts of human development: A multimethod comparison of same-sex couples with opposite-sex dating, engaged, and married dyads
This article presents a multimethod, multi-informant comparison of community samples of committed gay male (n=30) and lesbian (n=30) couples with both committed (n=50 young engaged and n=40 older married) and noncommitted (n=109 exclusively dating) heterosexual pairs. Specifically, in this study the quality of same- and opposite-sex relationships was examined at multiple levels of analysis via self-reports and partner reports, laboratory observat…
Patterns of stability in adult attachment: An empirical test of two models of continuity and change
One of the core assumptions of attachment theory is that attachment representations are stable over time. Unfortunately, the data on attachment stability have been ambiguous, and as a result, alternative theoretical perspectives have evolved to explain them. The objective of the present research was to evaluate alternative models of stability by studying adults in 2 intensive longitudinal investigations. Specifically, we assessed attachment repre…
The psychophysiology of adult attachment relationships: Autonomic reactivity in marital and premarital interactions
To better understand the origins of autonomic reactivity during marital interactions, this study examined the psychophysiological profiles of prototypically secure (vs. insecure) and deactivating (vs. hyperactivating) adults while they talked about areas of disagreement with their (pre)marital partners. Adults who idealized their caregivers and/or normalized harsh childhood experiences during the Adult Attachment Interview (i.e., deactivating adu…
Interpersonal and genetic origins of adult attachment styles: A longitudinal study from infancy to early adulthood
One of the assumptions of attachment theory is that individual differences in adult attachment styles emerge from individuals' developmental histories. To examine this assumption empirically, the authors report data from an age 18 follow-up (Booth-LaForce & Roisman, 2012) of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, a longitudinal investigation that tracked a cohort of children a…
The Adult Attachment Interview and self-reports of attachment style: An empirical rapprochement
Although 10 studies have been published on the empirical overlap of the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) and measures of self-reported attachment style, results in this literature have been inconsistently interpreted in narrative reviews. This report was designed as a rapprochement of the AAI and attachment style literatures and includes 3 studies. Study 1 (combined N = 961) is a meta-analytic review showing that by J. Cohen's (1992) criteria (me…
The Emotional Integration of Childhood Experience: Physiological, Facial Expressive, and Self-Reported Emotional Response During the Adult Attachment Interview
Attachment researchers claim that individual differences in how adults talk about their early memories reflect qualitatively distinct organizations of emotion regarding childhood experiences with caregivers. Testing this assumption, the present study examined the relationship between attachment dimensions and physiological, facial expressive, as well as self-reported emotional responses during the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). Consistent with…
The Developmental Significance of Adolescent Romantic Relationships: Parent and Peer Predictors of Engagement and Quality at Age 15
From a longitudinal sample (n = 957; 49.9% male; 77.3% White/non-Hispanic) of participants studied from infancy through age 15, adolescents' depth of engagement in, and quality of romantic relationships were predicted from early and contemporaneous parent-child interactive quality and peer social competence. High quality maternal parenting and peer experiences prior to and during adolescence tended to be negatively associated with the depth of en…
Big Five personality traits and relationship quality: Self-reported, observational, and physiological evidence
This report explored links between Big Five personality traits and the quality of romantic relationships. Interpersonal functioning was operationalized at three levels of analysis (self-reported quality, observed emotional tone, and physiological reactivity) in three samples (dating, engaged, and married couples). Couples completed questionnaires about their own and partners' personalities and then discussed a disagreement in their relationship w…
A taxometric study of the Adult Attachment Interview
This study is the first to examine the latent structure of individual differences reflected in the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI; C. George, N. Kaplan, & M. Main, 1985), a commonly used and well-validated measure designed to assess an adult's current state of mind regarding childhood experiences with caregivers. P. E. Meehl's (1995) taxometric methods (i.e., MAXCOV-HITMAX) were applied to data from 504 AAIs. Analyses revealed that the variation…
Adults’ autonomic and subjective emotional responses to infant vocalizations: The role of secure base script knowledge
This article examines the extent to which secure base script knowledge-as reflected in an adult's ability to generate narratives in which attachment-related threats are recognized, competent help is provided, and the problem is resolved-is associated with adults' autonomic and subjective emotional responses to infant distress and nondistress vocalizations. Adults who demonstrated low levels of secure base knowledge showed greater electrodermal re…
A behavior-genetic study of parenting quality, infant attachment security, and their covariation in a nationally representative sample
A number of relatively small-sample, genetically sensitive studies of infant attachment security have been published in the past several years that challenge the view that all psychological phenotypes are heritable and that environmental influences on child development--to the extent that they can be detected--serve to make siblings dissimilar. Using the twin subsample (N = 485 same-sex pairs) of the nationally representative Early Childhood Long…
Caregiving antecedents of secure base script knowledge: A comparative analysis of young adult attachment representations
Based on a subsample (N = 673) of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD) cohort, this article reports data from a follow-up assessment at age 18 years on the antecedents of secure base script knowledge, as reflected in the ability to generate narratives in which attachment-related difficulties are recognized, competent help is provided, and the problem is resolved. Secure base script knowledge was (a) modestly to moder…
Outness, Big Five personality traits, and same-sex relationship quality
This report examined the extent to which individuals from 60 same-sex romantic couples (30 gay male and 30 lesbian dyads) who disclosed their same-sex attractions to the world and family (i.e., were `out') were more likely than their relatively closeted counterparts to share higher quality relationships. Using a multimethod approach that included the `Big Five' personality dimensions as covariates, participants completed questionnaires about thei…
Adult attachment security and young adults’ dating relationships over time: Self-reported, observational, and physiological evidence
This study examined the developmental significance of adult attachment security--as measured by the Adult Attachment Interview--for romantic relationship functioning concurrently and approximately 1 year later in a sample of heterosexual dating couples between the ages of 18 and 25 (115 dyads at Time 1 [T1] and 57 dyads at T2, 74% White). The authors assessed romantic relationship functioning at T1 and T2 using observers' ratings of emotional ton…
The latent structure of secure base script knowledge
There is increasing evidence that attachment representations abstracted from childhood experiences with primary caregivers are organized as a cognitive script describing secure base use and support (i.e., the secure base script). To date, however, the latent structure of secure base script knowledge has gone unexamined-this despite that such basic information about the factor structure and distributional properties of these individual differences…
The predictive significance of fluctuations in early maternal sensitivity for secure base script knowledge and relationship effectiveness in adulthood
Attachment theory suggests that both the quality and consistency of early sensitive care should shape an individual's attachment working models and relationship outcomes across the lifespan. To date, most research has focused on the quality of early sensitive caregiving, finding that receiving higher quality care predicts more secure working models and better long-term relationship outcomes than receiving lower quality care. However, it remains u…
Other-Sex Relationship Stress and Sex Differences in the Contribution of Puberty to Depression
Research suggests that the pubertal transition, particularly when experienced earlier than age-matched peers, is associated with heightened depression in girls but less depression in boys. This study examined whether stress within other-sex relationships serves as one process through which puberty differentially contributes to depression for girls and boys. Youth (51 girls, 34 boys; M age = 12.68) and their caregivers reported on pubertal status …
Relational Aggression in Middle Childhood: Predictors and Adolescent Outcomes
This study examined gender differences in the level and developmental course of relational aggression in middle childhood, as well as early predictors and outcomes of relational aggression, after controlling for concurrent physical aggression. Relational (RAgg) and Physical aggression (PAgg) scores for 558 boys and 545 girls at ages 8-11 in the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD) were created by combining the highest ra…
Adult attachment representations and the quality of romantic and parent–child relationships: An examination of the contributions of coherence of discourse and secure base script knowledge
Attachment theory suggests that early experiences with caregivers are carried forward across development in the form of mental representations of attachment experiences. Researchers have investigated at least two representation-based constructs when studying attachment and successful adaptation in adulthood: (a) coherence of autobiographical discourse/memories and (b) knowledge of the secure base script. Here, we present data examining the unique…
Beyond Main Effects Models of Adolescent Work Intensity, Family Closeness, and School Disengagement: Mediational and Conditional Hypotheses
This article reports findings from a nationally representative, cross-sectional study of American high school students on the putative influences of work of more than 20 hours per week and adolescents’ perceptions of family closeness on school behavior and grades. As previous research has been inconsistent regarding the relations among these variables, participants’self-reported closeness to their family of origin was examined as both a potential…
Attachment states of mind and the quality of young adults' sibling relationships
This report examines young adults' states of mind regarding their early attachment experiences in relation to the observed and perceived quality of their sibling relationships. Sixty sibling pairs (18-25 years of age) were (a) administered the Adult Attachment Interview (George, Kaplan, & Main, 1985), (b) videotaped during a conflict resolution task, and (c) asked to describe the quality of their relationship using the Adult Sibling Relationship …
Disparities in Covid‐19–related stressful life events in the United States: Understanding who is most impacted
Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States have been exacerbated by pre-existing inequities in resources and opportunities, leaving the most vulnerable to face a multitude of hardships. The goal of the current study was to characterise COVID-19-related stressful life events in specific life domains and to identify the sociodemographic characteristics of individuals who are more likely to experience such events. Participants (n = 372, 5…
Maternal sensitivity during the first 31⁄2 years of life predicts electrophysiological responding to and cognitive appraisals of infant crying at midlife
This study examined the predictive significance of maternal sensitivity in early childhood for electrophysiological responding to and cognitive appraisals of infant crying at midlife in a sample of 73 adults (age = 39 years; 43 females; 58 parents) from the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation. When listening to an infant crying, both parents and nonparents who had experienced higher levels of maternal sensitivity in early childhoo…
Infant Attachment Security as a Discriminant Predictor of Career Development in Late Adolescence
This longitudinal study examined the predictive value of infant attachment security at 1 year for career development attitudes and educational aspirations at 18 years. Participants were drawn from an archived longitudinal study and assessed with Waters’ Attachment Q-set through secondary analysis of infancy records. Career development attitudes at 18 years were rated from participant interviews. In addition, parental derogation and idealization a…
Beyond Main Effects Models of Adolescent Work Intensity, Family Closeness, and School Disengagement: Mediational and Conditional Hypotheses
This article reports findings from a nationally representative, cross-sectional study of American high school students on the putative influences of work of more than 20 hours per week and adolescents’ perceptions of family closeness on school behavior and grades. As previous research has been inconsistent regarding the relations among these variables, participants’self-reported closeness to their family of origin was examined as both a potential…
Salient and Emerging Developmental Tasks in the Transition to Adulthood
Drawing on data from a normative sample of 205 children tracked into adulthood, this study examined the predictive links from 3 salient (friendship, academic, conduct) and 2 emerging (work, romantic) developmental tasks during the transition years around age 20 to adult adaptation 10 years later. Results (a) confirm the utility of salient developmental tasks for predicting adult success, (b) suggest that emerging domains have limited long-term pr…
The Emotional Integration of Childhood Experience: Physiological, Facial Expressive, and Self-Reported Emotional Response During the Adult Attachment Interview
Attachment researchers claim that individual differences in how adults talk about their early memories reflect qualitatively distinct organizations of emotion regarding childhood experiences with caregivers. Testing this assumption, the present study examined the relationship between attachment dimensions and physiological, facial expressive, as well as self-reported emotional responses during the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). Consistent with…
Developmental Cascades: Linking Academic Achievement and Externalizing and Internalizing Symptoms Over 20 Years
A developmental cascade model linking competence and symptoms was tested in a study of a normative, urban school sample of 205 children (initially 8 to 12 years old). Internalizing and externalizing symptoms and academic competence were assessed by multiple methods at the study outset and after 7, 10, and 20 years. A series of nested cascade models was tested through structural equation modeling. The final model indicated 2 hypothesized cascade e…
The psychophysiology of adult attachment relationships: Autonomic reactivity in marital and premarital interactions
To better understand the origins of autonomic reactivity during marital interactions, this study examined the psychophysiological profiles of prototypically secure (vs. insecure) and deactivating (vs. hyperactivating) adults while they talked about areas of disagreement with their (pre)marital partners. Adults who idealized their caregivers and/or normalized harsh childhood experiences during the Adult Attachment Interview (i.e., deactivating adu…
A taxometric study of the Adult Attachment Interview
This study is the first to examine the latent structure of individual differences reflected in the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI; C. George, N. Kaplan, & M. Main, 1985), a commonly used and well-validated measure designed to assess an adult's current state of mind regarding childhood experiences with caregivers. P. E. Meehl's (1995) taxometric methods (i.e., MAXCOV-HITMAX) were applied to data from 504 AAIs. Analyses revealed that the variation…
The Adult Attachment Interview and self-reports of attachment style: An empirical rapprochement
Although 10 studies have been published on the empirical overlap of the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) and measures of self-reported attachment style, results in this literature have been inconsistently interpreted in narrative reviews. This report was designed as a rapprochement of the AAI and attachment style literatures and includes 3 studies. Study 1 (combined N = 961) is a meta-analytic review showing that by J. Cohen's (1992) criteria (me…
Adult romantic relationships as contexts of human development: A multimethod comparison of same-sex couples with opposite-sex dating, engaged, and married dyads
This article presents a multimethod, multi-informant comparison of community samples of committed gay male (n=30) and lesbian (n=30) couples with both committed (n=50 young engaged and n=40 older married) and noncommitted (n=109 exclusively dating) heterosexual pairs. Specifically, in this study the quality of same- and opposite-sex relationships was examined at multiple levels of analysis via self-reports and partner reports, laboratory observat…
A behavior-genetic study of parenting quality, infant attachment security, and their covariation in a nationally representative sample
A number of relatively small-sample, genetically sensitive studies of infant attachment security have been published in the past several years that challenge the view that all psychological phenotypes are heritable and that environmental influences on child development--to the extent that they can be detected--serve to make siblings dissimilar. Using the twin subsample (N = 485 same-sex pairs) of the nationally representative Early Childhood Long…
Big Five personality traits and relationship quality: Self-reported, observational, and physiological evidence
This report explored links between Big Five personality traits and the quality of romantic relationships. Interpersonal functioning was operationalized at three levels of analysis (self-reported quality, observed emotional tone, and physiological reactivity) in three samples (dating, engaged, and married couples). Couples completed questionnaires about their own and partners' personalities and then discussed a disagreement in their relationship w…
The Developmental Significance of Adolescent Romantic Relationships: Parent and Peer Predictors of Engagement and Quality at Age 15
From a longitudinal sample (n = 957; 49.9% male; 77.3% White/non-Hispanic) of participants studied from infancy through age 15, adolescents' depth of engagement in, and quality of romantic relationships were predicted from early and contemporaneous parent-child interactive quality and peer social competence. High quality maternal parenting and peer experiences prior to and during adolescence tended to be negatively associated with the depth of en…
Adults’ autonomic and subjective emotional responses to infant vocalizations: The role of secure base script knowledge
This article examines the extent to which secure base script knowledge-as reflected in an adult's ability to generate narratives in which attachment-related threats are recognized, competent help is provided, and the problem is resolved-is associated with adults' autonomic and subjective emotional responses to infant distress and nondistress vocalizations. Adults who demonstrated low levels of secure base knowledge showed greater electrodermal re…
Outness, Big Five personality traits, and same-sex relationship quality
This report examined the extent to which individuals from 60 same-sex romantic couples (30 gay male and 30 lesbian dyads) who disclosed their same-sex attractions to the world and family (i.e., were `out') were more likely than their relatively closeted counterparts to share higher quality relationships. Using a multimethod approach that included the `Big Five' personality dimensions as covariates, participants completed questionnaires about thei…
The Significance of Insecure Attachment and Disorganization in the Development of Children’s Externalizing Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Study
This study addresses the extent to which insecure and disorganized attachments increase risk for externalizing problems using meta-analysis. From 69 samples (N = 5,947), the association between insecurity and externalizing problems was significant, d = 0.31 (95% CI: 0.23, 0.40). Larger effects were found for boys (d = 0.35), clinical samples (d = 0.49), and from observation-based outcome assessments (d = 0.58). Larger effects were found for attac…
Adult attachment security and young adults’ dating relationships over time: Self-reported, observational, and physiological evidence
This study examined the developmental significance of adult attachment security--as measured by the Adult Attachment Interview--for romantic relationship functioning concurrently and approximately 1 year later in a sample of heterosexual dating couples between the ages of 18 and 25 (115 dyads at Time 1 [T1] and 57 dyads at T2, 74% White). The authors assessed romantic relationship functioning at T1 and T2 using observers' ratings of emotional ton…
Relational Aggression in Middle Childhood: Predictors and Adolescent Outcomes
This study examined gender differences in the level and developmental course of relational aggression in middle childhood, as well as early predictors and outcomes of relational aggression, after controlling for concurrent physical aggression. Relational (RAgg) and Physical aggression (PAgg) scores for 558 boys and 545 girls at ages 8-11 in the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD) were created by combining the highest ra…
Autonomic arousal and relational aggression in heterosexual dating couples
This study investigated the association between romantic relational aggression and autonomic nervous system (ANS) arousal in the context of heterosexual dating couples ( N = 115 couples). Results indicated that romantic relational aggression was associated with low resting sympathetic arousal, high resting parasympathetic arousal, and exaggerated fight or flight responses to a conflict discussion (sympathetic activation and parasympathetic withdr…
Attachment states of mind and the quality of young adults' sibling relationships
This report examines young adults' states of mind regarding their early attachment experiences in relation to the observed and perceived quality of their sibling relationships. Sixty sibling pairs (18-25 years of age) were (a) administered the Adult Attachment Interview (George, Kaplan, & Main, 1985), (b) videotaped during a conflict resolution task, and (c) asked to describe the quality of their relationship using the Adult Sibling Relationship …
Elevated trajectories of externalizing problems are associated with lower awakening cortisol levels in midadolescence
A growing body of research suggesting a negative association between basal levels of cortisol and persistent antisocial behavior has emerged. The present study examined relations between awakening cortisol levels and antisocial trajectories from ages 5 to 15 years among individuals in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Antisocial behavior was defined by semiparametric grou…
Patterns of stability in adult attachment: An empirical test of two models of continuity and change
One of the core assumptions of attachment theory is that attachment representations are stable over time. Unfortunately, the data on attachment stability have been ambiguous, and as a result, alternative theoretical perspectives have evolved to explain them. The objective of the present research was to evaluate alternative models of stability by studying adults in 2 intensive longitudinal investigations. Specifically, we assessed attachment repre…
The Significance of Insecure and Disorganized Attachment for Children’s Internalizing Symptoms: A Meta-Analytic Study
This meta-analytic review examines the association between attachment and internalizing symptomatology during childhood, and compares the strength of this association with that for externalizing symptomatology. Based on 42 independent samples (N = 4,614), the association between insecurity and internalizing symptoms was small, yet significant (d = 0.15, CI 0.06∼0.25) and not moderated by assessment age of internalizing problems. Avoidance, but no…
Attachment styles in dating couples: Predicting relationship functioning over time
This study examined the associations between self‐reported attachment style dimensions and romantic relationship functioning over 1 year in a sample of heterosexual dating couples between the ages of 18 and 25 (115 dyads at T1, 57 dyads at T2; 74% Caucasian). Relationship functioning was assessed at multiple levels of analysis via self‐reports of interpersonal functioning, observers' ratings of dyadic interactions, and measures of autonomic respo…
Other-Sex Relationship Stress and Sex Differences in the Contribution of Puberty to Depression
Research suggests that the pubertal transition, particularly when experienced earlier than age-matched peers, is associated with heightened depression in girls but less depression in boys. This study examined whether stress within other-sex relationships serves as one process through which puberty differentially contributes to depression for girls and boys. Youth (51 girls, 34 boys; M age = 12.68) and their caregivers reported on pubertal status …
Interpersonal and genetic origins of adult attachment styles: A longitudinal study from infancy to early adulthood
One of the assumptions of attachment theory is that individual differences in adult attachment styles emerge from individuals' developmental histories. To examine this assumption empirically, the authors report data from an age 18 follow-up (Booth-LaForce & Roisman, 2012) of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, a longitudinal investigation that tracked a cohort of children a…
Psychology (58 works) · Developmental psychology (57 works) · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics (40 works) · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development (34 works) · Social Psychology (33 works) · Attachment theory (23 works) · Clinical Psychology (22 works) · Social Psychology (19 works) · Medicine (17 works) · Clinical Psychology (14 works)