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

摘要 这项研究的总体目标是促进儿童积极、适应性的社会情感途径 发展并防止适应不良途径。我们的工作解释了为什么有些孩子会采取积极的态度 通往亲社会、内化、遵守规则的行为和强大的社会能力的道路，而其他人 进入适应不良的道路，走向冷酷无情、无视行为规则和他人感受、反社会 行为和能力匮乏。我们关注亲子早期依恋关系，形成 在生命的最初几年，作为这些不同途径的来源，我们纵向绘制其复杂的图， 间接但强大的长期影响。根据我们过去和当前的工作，相关和 在低风险和高风险家庭中进行实验，我们建议尽管早期亲子依恋可能不会 具有长期的、无限制的直接影响，但它仍然可以作为未来的强大催化剂或调节剂 父母和孩子之间展开的动态。具体来说，早期的依恋不安全感奠定了基础 对抗性的、负面的级联。在没有安全感的亲子关系中，孩子的脾气很容易变得困难 触发父母消极的、强制的、强势的控制，进而导致孩子适应不良 结果。相比之下，早期的安全感为积极、合作、有效的社会化和社会化奠定了基础。 化解负面连锁反应的风险。为了阐明解释这些过程的机制，我们建议 不同的级联是由于父母和孩子不同的内部表征、期望和 表征不安全和安全二人组的相互看法（内部工作模型，或 IWM）。 然后，这些 IWM 会指导父母和孩子的行为和互动。一项针对 200 人的新研究 社区母亲、父亲和婴儿在 7-9、15-17、36-38 和 46-48 个月时进行集中评估， 测试这个模型。采用最科学的措施衡量父母和儿童的社会代表性， 目标 1 我们检查他们之间出现的消极或积极的 IWM，将其与他们早期的不安全感或不安全感联系起来。 安全的依恋关系。然后将这些 IWM 作为解决不同问题的关键机制进行测试 在不安全和安全的关系中展开的级联。在目标 2 中，我们检查父母的 IWM 儿童作为调节儿童困难和父母控制之间联系的因素，在目标 3 中，我们检查了儿童的 父母的 IWM 可以调节父母控制与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 统计数据。通过多方法、多层次的方法，我们收集观察、遗传和报告的测量结果 父母和孩子的社会认知、气质、依恋、父母控制和孩子的结果。 分析依靠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。这项研究将产生一种新颖的、长期倡导但尚未实现的综合 依恋、气质、内在表征和行为在儿童的调整途径中。

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.