Attachment to mother/attachment to father: a meta-analysis.

An important tenet of attachment theory is that classification of security or insecurity as derived from the Strange Situation reflects the quality of an infant's relationship with its caregiver. One piece of evidence supporting this claim is the lack of concordance of classification between an infant and its mother and father. We performed a meta-analysis of the 11 studies that have examined the concordance of mother/father attachment to an infant. We found that security of attachment to one parent was dependent upon security to the other parent, that type of insecurity (avoidant/resistant) to one parent was dependent upon type of insecurity to the other, and that subcategory classification within the secure category (B1B2/B3B4) to one parent was dependent upon subcategory classification to the other. These data raise important questions regarding the meaning of infant attachment classification as derived from the Strange Situation. Among the possible explanations for the pattern of data are existence of concordant parenting styles and/or influence of infant temperament (possibly the tendency to cry upon separation) on classification of security/insecurity in the Strange Situation.

[1]  J. Fleiss.  Statistical methods for rates and proportions , 1974 .

[2]  Jude Cassidy,et al.  Security in infancy, childhood, and adulthood: A move to the level of representation. , 1985 .

[3]  H. Goldsmith,et al.  Maternal and infant temperamental predictors of attachment: a meta-analytic review. , 1987, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology.

[4]  N. Fox.  Psychophysiological Correlates of Emotional Reactivity during the First Year of Life. , 1989 .

[5]  J. Belsky,et al.  Similarities and differences in infant-mother and infant-father interaction in the strange situation: A component process analysis. , 1988 .

[6]  Marinus H. van IJzendoorn,et al.  Quality of infants' attachments to professional caregivers: relation to infant-parent attachment and day-care characteristics. , 1990, Child development.

[7]  The Relationship between Quality of Infant-Mother Attachment and Infant Competence in Initial Encounters with Peers. , 1979 .

[8]  Alexander Thomas,et al.  The dynamics of psychological development , 1980 .

[9]  Mary D. Salter Ainsworth,et al.  Infant-mother attachment and social development: 'Socialisation' as a product of reciprocal responsiveness to signals. , 1974 .

[10]  J. Bates,et al.  Attachment security, mother-child interaction, and temperament as predictors of behavior-problem ratings at age three years. , 1985, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.

[11]  Nathan A. Fox,et al.  Infant Reactivity: Physiological Correlates of Newborn and 5-Month Temperament. , 1990 .

[12]  E. Waters,et al.  Issues of temperament and attachment. , 1982, The American journal of orthopsychiatry.

[13]  S. Chess,et al.  Temperament and Development , 1977 .

[14]  N. Fox,et al.  Frontal brain asymmetry predicts infants' response to maternal separation. , 1989, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[15]  L. Sroufe.  Attachment classification from the perspective of infant-caregiver relationships and infant temperament. , 1985, Child development.

[16]  M. Lewis,et al.  Infant, mother, and mother-infant interaction behavior and subsequent attachment. , 1989 .

[17]  J. Belsky,et al.  Assessing performance, competence, and executive capacity in infant play: Relations to home environment and security of attachment. , 1984 .

[18]  J. Belsky,et al.  Temperament and attachment security in the strange situation: an empirical rapprochement. , 1987, Child development.

[19]  J. Kagan.  Psychological research on the human infant : an evaluative summary , 1982 .

[20]  M. Lamb,et al.  Stability and change in parental attitudes following an infant's birth into traditional and nontraditional Swedish families. , 1982, Scandinavian journal of psychology.

[21]  K. Grossmann,et al.  German Children's Behavior Towards Their Mothers at 12 Months and Their Fathers at 18 Months in Ainsworth's Strange Situation , 1981 .

[22]  Infant Irritability, Mother Responsiveness, and Social Support Influences on the Security of Infant-Mother Attachment. , 1981 .

[23]  M. Lamb.  Qualitative aspects of mother- and father-infant attachments , 1978 .

[24]  D. Derryberry,et al.  Development of individual differences in temperament , 1981 .

[25]  J. Belsky,et al.  The Pennsylvania Infant and Family Development Project, III: The origins of individual differences in infant-mother attachment: maternal and infant contributions. , 1984, Child development.

[26]  R. Parke,et al.  The Family in Early Infancy: Social Interactional and Attitudinal Analyses. , 1977 .

[27]  Alexander von Eye,et al.  Origins of infant-mother attachment: An examination of interactional synchrony during the infant's first year. , 1989 .

[28]  M. Main,et al.  The quality of the toddler's relationship to mother and to father: Related to conflict behavior and the readiness to establish new relationships. , 1981 .

[29]  B. Bryant.  The neighborhood walk: sources of support in middle childhood. , 1985, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.

[30]  Ann L. Brown,et al.  Rating the Importance of Structural Units of Prose Passages: A Problem of Metacognitive Development. , 1977 .

[31]  A. Buss,et al.  Temperament: Early Developing Personality Traits , 1984 .

[32]  J. Connell,et al.  Temperament, emotion, and social interactive behavior in the strange situation: a component process analysis of attachment system functioning. , 1988, Child development.

[33]  R. Seifer,et al.  Attachment behavior, attachment security, and temperament during infancy. , 1989, Child development.

[34]  Ross A. Thompson,et al.  Stranger sociability and its relationships to temperament and social experience during the second year , 1982 .

[35]  J. Belsky,et al.  The Pennsylvania Infant and Family Development Project, I: Stability and change in mother-infant and father-infant interaction in a family setting at one, three, and nine months. , 1984, Child development.

[36]  M. Lamb,et al.  Security of mother- and father-infant attachment and its relation to sociability with strangers in traditional and nontraditional Swedish families , 1982 .

[37]  M. Lamb,et al.  Associations between Parental Agreement Regarding Child-Rearing and the Characteristics of Families and Children in Sweden , 1989 .

[38]  M. Lamb,et al.  Security of infant-mother, -father, and -metapelet attachments among kibbutz-reared Israeli children. , 1985, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.

[39]  M. Levitt,et al.  Individual Variation in Attachment Security and Strange Situation Behavior: The Role of Maternal and Infant Temperament. , 1986 .

[40]  Attachment as an Organizational Construct , 1977 .

[41]  M. Lamb,et al.  Correlations between sociability and motor performance scores in 8-month-olds , 1982 .

[42]  M. Richards,et al.  The Integration of a Child into a Social World , 1974 .