Elucidating the legacy of early parent-child attachment: A new developmental synthesis of temperament, internal representation, and behavior

摘要 本研究的总体目标是促进儿童积极的、适应性的社会情绪途径 发展和防止适应不良的途径。我们的工作解释了为什么有些孩子开始积极的 走向亲社会，内化，遵守规则的行为和强大的社会能力，而其他人 进入适应不良的道路，走向麻木不仁，无视行为规则和他人的感受，反社会 行为和贫乏的能力。我们关注的是亲子早期的依恋关系， 在生命的最初几年，作为这些不同途径的来源，我们纵向绘制其复合体， 间接但有力的长期影响在我们过去和现在工作的基础上， 在低风险和高风险家庭中，我们提出，尽管早期的亲子依恋可能不会 虽然它具有长期的不合格的直接影响，但它仍然是未来的强大催化剂或缓和剂。 父母和孩子之间的互动具体来说，早期依恋的不安全感 对抗性的负面连锁反应在没有安全感的亲子关系中，孩子的难相处的性情容易 引发了父母的消极，强制，权力主张的控制，这反过来又导致了适应不良的孩子 结果。相反，早期的安全感为积极、合作、有效的社会化奠定了基础， 消除负面级联的风险。为了阐明解释这些过程的机制，我们提出， 不同的级联是由于父母和孩子的不同的内部表征，期望， 内部工作模型（Internal Working Models，简称IWM）是一种以不安全和安全为特征的二元结构。 这些IWM然后来指导父母和孩子的行为和互动。200项新研究 社区母亲、父亲和婴儿在7 - 9、15 - 17、36 - 38和46 - 48个月时进行了集中评估， 测试这个模型。部署父母和儿童社会代表性的科学措施， 目的1，我们研究他们的新兴消极或积极的IWM的对方，因为他们的早期不安全或 安全的依恋关系。然后，这些IWM被测试为解释不同的 在不安全和安全的关系中展开的级联。在目标2中，我们检查了 儿童作为调节儿童困难和父母控制之间的联系，在目标3中，我们检查了儿童的 父母的IWM作为调节父母控制和儿童结果之间的联系。我们的团队包括 社会情感发展、婴儿和成人认知、分子遗传学和方法学方面的专家， 统计在多方法、多水平的方法中，我们收集观察性、遗传性和报告的测量结果 父母和孩子的社会认知，气质，依恋，父母控制，和孩子的结果。 分析依赖于结构方程模型来阐明不同发育级联的机制 随着时间的推移而展开。这项研究将产生一个新的，长期倡导，但尚未实现，综合 依恋、气质、内在表征和行为对儿童适应的影响。

ABSTRACT The overarching goal of this research is to promote children's positive, adaptive pathways of socioemotional development and to prevent maladaptive pathways. Our work explains why some children embark on positive paths toward prosocial, internalized, rule-abiding conduct, and robust social competence, whereas others enter maladaptive paths toward callousness, disregard for conduct rules and others' feelings, antisocial behavior, and impoverished competence. We focus on the parent-child early attachment relationship, formed in the first years of life, as a source of those divergent pathways, and we longitudinally chart its complex, indirect yet powerful, long-term implications. On the basis of our past and current work, correlational and experimental, in low- and high-risk families, we propose that although early parent-child attachment may not have long-term unqualified, direct effects, it nevertheless serves as a powerful catalyst or moderator of future dynamics unfolding between the parent and the child. Specifically, early attachment insecurity sets the stage for an adversarial, negative cascade. In insecure parent-child dyads, the child's difficult temperament easily triggers the parent's negative, coercive, power-assertive control, which, in turn, leads to maladaptive child outcomes. In contrast, early security sets the stage for positive, cooperative, effective socialization, and defuses risks of negative cascades. To elucidate mechanisms explaining those processes, we propose that the divergent cascades are due to parents' and children's differing internal representations, expectations, and perceptions of each other (Internal Working Models, or IWMs) that characterize insecure and secure dyads. Those IWMs then come to guide parents' and children's behavior and interactions. A new study of 200 community mothers, fathers, and infants, intensively assessed at 7-9, 15-17, 36-38, and 46-48 months, will test this model. Deploying state-of-the-science measures of parents' and children's social representations, in Aim 1 we examine their emerging negative or positive IWMs of each other as linked to their early insecure or secure attachment relationships. Those IWMs are then tested as key mechanisms accounting for divergent cascades that unfold in insecure and secure relationships. In Aim 2, we examine the parent's IWM of the child as moderating the link between child difficulty and parental control, and in Aim 3, we examine the child's IWM of the parent as moderating the link between parental control and child outcomes. Our team includes experts in socioemotional development, infant and adult cognition, molecular genetics, and methodology and statistics. In a multi-method, multi-level approach, we collect observational, genetic, and reported measures of parent and child social cognition, temperament, attachment, parental control, and children's outcomes. Analyses rely on structural equation modeling to elucidate mechanisms of divergent developmental cascades unfolding over time. This research will produce a novel, long-advocated, but yet to be realized, synthesis of attachment, temperament, internal representation, and behavior in pathways to children's adjustment.