This study examined early adolescent romantic "churning," defined here as having a large number of boyfriends/girlfriends by age 13, as a problematic marker likely to predict hostility, abuse, and avoidance during conflict in later relationships. A sample of 184 adolescents was followed through age 24 to assess predictions of hostility,…

The current study investigated the intergenerational transmission of attachment in Sapporo, Japan, using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) and the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP). This is the first SSP study in Sapporo in three decades, after a study in the mid-1980s reported controversial results. The SSP distributions found in the current…

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…

The study examined the effectiveness of PRERAYMI (Promoting Responsiveness Emotion Regulation and Attachment in Young Mothers and Infants) attachment-based intervention programme aimed at adolescent mother-infant dyads. The intervention used video-feedback and developmental guidance to promote maternal mind-mindedness and sensitivity. 32…

One of the most striking pieces of evidence in attachment research is that attachment security is transmitted from 1 generation to the next. Although there has been an enormous advance in the understanding of this process, this area of research suffers from some significant gaps, as for example the transmission across 3 generations when…

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…

John Bowlby's (1982) attachment theory can be applied to an existing therapeutic framework to enhance the effectiveness of therapy. Using the Adult Attachment Inventory (AAI), a therapist can identify the type of attachment the client formed with his/her caregivers, and use this to navigate an authentic attachment between client and therapist.…

We examined the extent to which new mothers' recollections of their mothers' emotion socialization practices during childhood predict sensitive/supportive responses to their own toddlers in distressing situations both directly and indirectly via effects on mothers' social information processing about infant cry signals. Mothers' adult attachment…

Background: The link between disorders of attachment and psychopathology is well documented. Consequently, a person's attachment style has a profound effect on his or her development and psychological well-being. At-risk populations such as adopted children are more prone to developing pervasive patterns of attachment, given the maternal…

This study aimed to explore the self-protective strategies of six parents with ADHD and the sensitivity they displayed in dyadic interaction with their under 3-years-old children. The parents were interviewed using the Adult Attachment Interview. Parental sensitivity was assessed using the CARE-Index. The study showed a variation of the parents'…

This study investigates whether individual differences in attachment status can be detected by electrophysiological responses to loss-themed pictures. The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) was used to identify discourse/reasoning lapses during the discussion of loss experiences via death that place speakers in the Unresolved/disorganized AAI…

A longstanding question for attachment theory and research is whether genetically based characteristics of the child influence the development of attachment security and its stability over time. This study attempted to replicate and extend recent findings indicating that the developmental stability of attachment security is moderated by oxytocin…

The present study explored how romantic relationship qualities develop with age and relationship length. Eight waves of data on romantic relationships were collected over 10.5 years during adolescence and early adulthood from a community-based sample in a Western U.S. city (100 males, 100 females; M age Wave 1 = 15.83). Measures of support,…

This paper reports on the longitudinal links between first-time mothers (N = 48) Adult Attachment Interviews (AAIs), provided during pregnancy, and their first-born children's AAIs, provided at age 16 years. The AAIs from the adolescents were scored for reflective functioning (RF), and this was found to be significantly linked to whether their…

In this commentary, Spangler evaluates the Steele, Perez, Segal, and Steele report that arguede that reflective functioning in adolescence could not be predicted by quality of early infant attachment, but was associated with maternal (but not paternal) attachment representation, assessed before the adolescents' birth. Assuming that parental…