The Developmental Antecedents and Cognitive Correlates of Script-like Attachment

描述（由申请人提供）：成人依恋的个体差异具有重要的临床和社会意义。例如，成人依恋相关的变异与(a)更高质量的同伴关系，(b)更有效地解决与浪漫伴侣的冲突，以及(c)更敏感和回应的父母有关。本提案的目的是检查成人依恋在早期照顾经验的前因。最近的理论论点表明，高质量和支持性的养育方式发展成为依恋关系的脚本式表现，而这些脚本式的依恋表现会影响成年后的行为。然而，仍有几个问题未得到解决。具体来说，目前还没有大样本的实证证明，脚本式的依恋表征是从早期经验发展而来的，或者这些脚本式的依恋表征与成人依恋的更成熟的测量方法（如成人依恋访谈（AAI），一种对成人依恋表征的间接评估）有关。我们建议通过两种方式来解决这些差距：(1)通过检查类脚本依恋表征的发展前因，以及安全的基础脚本知识是否解释了早期经验与AAI之间的关联；(2)探索类脚本依恋表征的几个潜在认知相关性

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Individual differences in adult attachment have significant clinical and societal implications. For example, adult attachment-related variation is associated with (a) higher quality peer relationships, (b) more effective conflict resolution with romantic partners, and (c) more sensitive and responsive parenting. The goal of this proposal is to examine the antecedents of adult attachment in early caregiving experiences. Recent theoretical arguments suggest that high quality and supportive parenting develops into a script-like representation of the attachment relationship, and that these script-like representations of attachment come to influence behavior in adulthood. However, several issues remain unaddressed. Specifically, there has been no large sample empirical demonstration that script-like attachment representations develop from early experience or that these scripts- like attachment representations are associated with more established measures of adult attachment like the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), an indirect assessment of adult attachment representations. We propose to address these gaps in two ways: (1) by examining the developmental antecedents of script-like attachment representations and whether secure base script knowledge accounts for associations between early experience and the AAI and (2) exploring several potential cognitive correlates of script-like attachment representations relevant to AAI performance, specifically memory accessibility and organization. The first aim (SA1) is to examine the developmental antecedents of script-like attachment representations by taking advantage of a large prospective, longitudinal sample, the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD), which followed 857 participants from infancy to late adolescence. Script-like attachment representations will be assessed by re-coding existing data with a newly developed coding scheme. We will then examine the developmental antecedents of script-like attachment representation with measures of the quality of early experience (e.g. parental sensitivity) collected across development, exploring in particular whether variation in secure base script knowledge mediates associations between early caregiving experiences and adults states of mind regarding attachment as assessed by the AAI. A second set of studies (SA2) will seek to explore the cognitive correlates of script-like attachment representations. We will conduct two laboratory- based studies examining the influence of script-like attachment representations on memory accessibility and organization. These studies will test the extent to which script-like attachment representations facilitate memory recall and the production of well organized/complete attachment narratives using well-established paradigms from the cognitive psychology literature. The knowledge gained from these specific aims has the potential to (1) inform our understanding of the influence early experience can have on later development, (2) provide an operative mechanism to target in interventions focused on attachment relationships.