Preschool to school-age trajectories of 242 children, including 37 with insecure-disorganized and 66 with insecure-organized attachment patterns, were examined. Child attachment and stressful life events (the latter retrospectively) were measured at ages 5-7, and mother-child interactive quality, parenting stress, marital satisfaction, and…

This study examined differences in the caregiving representations of mothers of 3- to 4-year-old behaviorally inhibited and uninhibited children with secure or insecure attachments. Mothers of inhibited children perceived their children as more vulnerable than did mothers of uninhibited children, and they acknowledged difficulties associated with…

When 29 child sex offenders, 30 violent offenders, 30 nonviolent offenders, and 30 community controls were compared, a secure adult attachment style was 4 times less common in the child sex offender group than in any of the other three groups. Ninety-three percent of sex offenders had an insecure adult attachment style. Compared with community…

Extending an earlier study that found high self-esteem to modify the impact of otherwise maladaptive perfectionism on depression, the current study used adult attachment theory to explore the link between perfectionism, self-esteem, and depression in college students. Results indicated that self-esteem buffered the effects of maladaptive…

The goal of the research reported in this article was to examine the process of forming attachment to caregivers in children new to childcare. We examined child and adult behaviors and the adult's perception of the child at entry, and the ethnic/racial match between the child and caregiver as predictors of attachment relationship quality measured…

Over the last century, investigation of pretend companions has developed as an emerging field. Although pretend companions are a commonplace childhood phenomenon and perhaps an epitome of children's imagination, that topic received little attention before the end of the 19th century. Only since the last decade has attention to it truly begun to…

This article addresses how close relationships can be conceptualized so that they can be accurately understood over the life span. First, two typical clusters of theories of close relationships, the attachment theory and the social network theory, are compared and discussed with regard to their fundamental but controversial assumptions regarding…

Based on the position that cultural ideologies shape child development, many developmental analyses have focused on analyzing cultural conceptions of independence and interdependence. Less attention has been paid to charting the developmental sequences of children's independent and interdependent behavior that are ostensibly shaped by cultural…

The aim of this article is to propose a theorization of the father-child relationship based on our current understanding of attachment, interactions between fathers and their young children, and human-specific adaptations. The comparison of mother-child and father-child interactions suggests that fathers play a particularly important role in the…

Some researchers believe that important tenets of attachment theory are culturally universal, whereas others claim that key constructs are rooted in Western values and should not be generalized further. To explore possible cultural differences in adults, undergraduates from Taiwan (n = 280) and the United States (n = 268) were asked in the present…

Meta-analysis aggregated results of 40 investigations involving 2,867 children who averaged 29.6 ("SD" = 8.6) months of age when their attachments to care providers were assessed using either the Strange Situation (SS) or the Attachment Q-Set (AQS). As opposed to parents, secure attachments to nonparental care providers were less likely (using SS)…

The study examined children's self-reported socio-emotional characteristics (loneliness and sense of coherence) and perception of their homeroom teacher as a secure base among 3rd-graders with reading difficulties prior to formal diagnostic assessment, thus controlling for the possible impact of diagnosis. In line with resilience theory, this…

This study examined the mediating roles of perceived social support and psychological distress on the relationship between adult attachment and help-seeking intentions. Participants were 355 college students at a large Midwestern university. The structural equation model results indicated that attachment anxiety in individuals was positively…

The current study was conducted to examine associations between children's maternal attachments and the quality of their relationships with teachers at 3 time points. The quality of the teacher-child relationship at 54 months, kindergarten, and 1st grade was regressed on blocks of predictors that included maternal attachment at 15, 24, and 36…

This study examined basic psychological needs satisfaction (i.e., the need for autonomy, competence, and relatedness) as a mediator between adult attachment (i.e., anxiety and avoidance) and distress (i.e., shame, depression, and loneliness). A total of 299 undergraduates from a Midwestern university participated. Results from structural equation…