The relations between maternal behaviors and urban preschool children's internal working models of attachment security

Interviewed 93 African-American, low-income women who had become pregnant as teenagers and their preschool-aged children in their homes. Mothers answered questions regarding their everyday stresses and feelings of depression. Children were assessed for receptive vocabulary ability, then video-taped completing five stories thematically related to attachment experiences with mother and rated on their security of attachment. Mothers and children were also videotaped playing together, and mothers were assessed on their sensitivity to their children's cues. After controlling for children's age and receptive vocabulary ability, mothers' sensitivity significantly predicted children's level of attachment security. The positive association between maternal sensitivity and children's security of attachment, and the strengths and weaknesses of administering the Attachment Story-Completion Task in the home with this population, are discussed. Implications for assessing attachment in the home are considered.

Association (psychology) · Attachment theory · Developmental psychology · Feeling · Insecure attachment · Maternal sensitivity · Population · Vocabulary · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics · Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development · Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and Postpartum · Medicine · Psychology · Social Psychology

• Representações de vinculação na infância

  Open Access•Joana Maia, Manuela Veríssimo et al.•Análise Psicológica•2012

  Incluir item

• Internal Working Models of Toddlers

  Qing Lin, Lin Qing et al.•Acta Psychologica Sinica•2014

  Incluir item

• Children’s attachment-related narratives following US Gulf Coast hurricanes

  Open Access•Timothy F Page, Timothy Page et al.•Journal of Early Childhood Research•2014

  Incluir item

• Are narrative story stem methods valid in “non-Western” contexts? A systematic review

  Open Access•Ming Wai Wan, Alice Taylor et al.•International Journal of…•2025

  Incluir item

• Beyond the Dyad

  Open Access•Francisca Pérez, Francisca Pérez C et al.•Infant Mental Health Journal•2017

  Incluir item

• Predictors of representational aggression in preschool children of low‐income urban African American adolescent mothers

  Open Access•Geoff Goodman, J Lawrence Aber•Infant Mental Health Journal•2010

  Incluir item

• Mary Ainsworth’s legacy

  Judi Mesman, Rosanneke A G Emmen•Attachment & Human Development•2013

  Incluir item

• Representations of Attachment Relationships in Children of Incarcerated Mothers

  Open Access•Julie Poehlmann•Child Development•2005

  Incluir item

• The Pennsylvania Infant and Family Development Project, III

  J Belsky, Michael Rovine et al.•Child Development•1984

  Incluir item

• Individual Differences in Infant-Mother Attachment at Twelve and Eighteen Months

  Brian E Vaughn, Brian Vaughn et al.•Child Development•1979

  Incluir item

• The CES-D Scale

  Open Access•Lenore Sawyer Radloff•Applied Psychological Measurement•1977

  Incluir item

• Attachment and Loss. Vol. 1. Attachment

  GEORGE W REVER•Psychosomatic Medicine•1972

  Incluir item

• Infant-Mother Attachment

  Byron Egeland, Ellen A Farber•Child Development•1984

  Incluir item

• The depressed mother and her one-year-old infant

  Open Access•Karlen Lyons-Ruth, Karlen Lyons‐Ruth et al.•New Directions for Child and…•1986

  Incluir item

• Family relationships as represented in a story-completion task at thirty-seven and fifty-four months of age

  Open Access•Inge Bretherton, Charlynn Prentiss et al.•New Directions for Child and…•1990

  Incluir item

• The Bears' Picnic

  Open Access•Edward Mueller, Elizabeth C Tingley et al.•New Directions for Child and…•1990

  Incluir item

• Early stress and social support influences on mothers' and high-risk infants' functioning in late infancy

  Open Access•Keith A Crnic, Mark T Greenberg et al.•Infant Mental Health Journal•1986

  Incluir item

• Attachment

  Open Access•Inge Bretherton, Zeynep Biringen et al.•Infant Mental Health Journal•1989

  Incluir item

• Social Origins of Depression

  Phoebe Kazdin Schnitzer, George W Brown et al.•Contemporary Sociology A Journal…•1980

  Incluir item

• Infants at social risk

  Karlen Lyons-Ruth, Karlen Lyons‐Ruth et al.•Developmental Psychology•1987

  Incluir item

• Categories of response to reunion with the parent at age 6

  Mary Main, Jude Cassidy•Developmental Psychology•1988

  Incluir item

• Children of adolescent mothers

  Laura Hubbs‐tait, Laura Hubbs-Tait et al.•American Journal of Orthopsychiatry•1996

  Incluir item

• The illusion of mental health

  Jonathan Shedler, Martin Mayman et al.•American Psychologist•1993

  Incluir item