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的、适应性的社会情绪路径 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走上积极的道路 走向亲社会、内部化、遵守规则的行为和强大的社交能力的道路，而其他 进入不适应的道路，走向冷酷无情，无视行为规则和他人的感受，反社会 行为，和贫乏的能力。我们关注亲子早期的依恋关系，形成 在生命的最初几年，作为这些不同路径的来源，我们纵向绘制了它的复杂性， 间接但强大的长期影响。在我们过去和现在工作的基础上，相关和 试验性的，在低风险和高风险家庭中，我们认为，尽管早期的亲子依恋可能不会 有长期的、不合格的、直接的影响，但它仍然是未来的强大催化剂或减速剂 在父对象和子对象之间展开动态。具体地说，早期的依恋不安全感为 对于一场对抗性的、负面的瀑布。在缺乏安全感的亲子二人组中，孩子的脾气很容易变得难相处 触发父母消极的、强制的、强势的控制，进而导致孩子不适应 结果。相比之下，早期安全为积极、合作、有效的社会化和 化解负面连锁效应的风险。为了阐明解释这些过程的机制，我们提出 这种不同的级联是由于父母和孩子不同的内部表征、期望和 对彼此的看法(内部工作模型，或IWM)，表征不安全和安全的二元组。 然后，这些IWM来指导父母和孩子的行为和互动。一项关于200人的新研究 社区母亲、父亲和婴儿，在7-9个月、15-17个月、36-38个月和46-48个月进行密集评估，将 测试一下这个型号。采用最新的父母和儿童社会代表性措施， 目标1检查他们彼此之间出现的消极或积极的IWM，认为这与他们早期的不安全或 保护附件关系。然后，将这些IWM作为解释差异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，我们检查了父母的IWM 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子女结果之间的联系。我们的团队包括 社会情绪发展、婴儿和成人认知、分子遗传学和方法论方面的专家 统计数据。在多方法、多层次的方法中，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。 分析依赖于结构方程模型来阐明发散发展级联的机制 随着时间的推移而展开。这项研究将产生一种新的、长期倡导但尚未实现的合成 依恋、气质、内在表征、行为对儿童适应路径的影响。

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.