The influence of attachment security on preschool children’s empathic concern

2013 ◽  
Vol 37 (5) ◽  
pp. 436-440 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tia Panfile Murphy ◽  
Deborah J. Laible

The current study examined the direction of the association between children’s attachment security and empathic responding. At 42 and 48 months of age, 69 children’s empathic concern was observed, and mothers reported the children’s attachment. Results indicated that attachment at 42 months predicted empathic concern at 48 months even after controlling for the influence of previous empathic concern. Similar analyses to predict attachment at 48 months from previous empathic concern were not significant, implying that a secure attachment predicted empathic concern and not the reverse. The findings suggest that a secure attachment relationship might be one context in which children learn to respond empathically to others.

1997 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolus M.J.L. Vereijken ◽  
J. Marianne Riksen-Walraven ◽  
Kiyomi Kondo-Ikemura

In this study we examined the relation between maternal sensitivity and child attachment security, one of the core propositions of attachment theory, in a Japanese sample. Attachment security was assessed with the Attachment Q-Sort at the ages of 14 and 24 months. At the same ages, ratings were obtained for the mothers’ sensitivity in interactions with their children. The expected significant relationship between maternal sensitivity and child security was found both at 14 and 24 months. Maternal sensitivity showed moderate stability between the two ages. LISREL analysis showed that the correlation between maternal sensitivity and infant security at 24 months is not fully explained by the correlation between sensitivity and security 10 months earlier. This indicates that maternal sensitivity continues to play a significant role in the development of a secure attachment relationship in the second year of life.


Author(s):  
Sue Wright

In this article the author explores the use of imagination and clinical intuition in psychotherapy. She discusses the functions of imagination and how the capacity to be creative and for flexible imagining emerges within a secure attachment relationship in early childhood. Winnicott's ideas are important here. She also discusses what happens when trauma or relationship failings compromise the transitional space and uses case examples to illustrate some responses to this breakdown. To set the scene the author discusses changing views on illusion and imagination from Freud onwards to the present day when we are informed by recent findings in neuroscience and interpersonal neurobiology. It is richly illustrated with theory and case material.


2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 340-347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin C Williams ◽  
Anne Biscaro ◽  
Jean Clinton

Abstract A secure attachment relationship with at least one healthy adult is essential for a child to develop optimal coping abilities. Primary care providers like paediatricians and family physicians can help by supporting parents in practice settings. Every clinician encounter is an opportunity to ask parents about children’s relationships and their behaviour, daily routines, and overall family function. This statement, which focuses on children aged 0 to 6 years, describes basic principles in support of positive parenting and recommends in-office practices to promote secure parent–child relationships, engage families and build trust with parents. Crying, sleep, and difficult behaviours are described as opportunities for clinicians to provide anticipatory, responsive guidance to parents.


2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anja van der Voort ◽  
Femmie Juffer ◽  
Marian J. Bakermans-Kranenburg

Purpose – The quality of the attachment relationship between children and their parents is important for children's social-emotional development and can have profound consequences for adaptational processes in later life. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of the current knowledge about sensitive parenting and its role in affecting infants’ attachment security, and developmental outcomes of attachment. The authors end with a brief discussion of evidence-based interventions aimed at improving sensitive parenting and the attachment relationship between children and parents. Design/methodology/approach – The authors refer to meta-analyses as quantitative reviews in which all available studies conducted on a particular subject (such as maternal sensitivity and attachment) are included. Findings – The authors conclude that numerous empirical studies and meta-analyses have confirmed the importance of sensitive parenting and attachment security for children's social-emotional development, providing a robust evidence base for translation, implementation, and intervention in practice. Originality/value – This paper gives an overview of the current knowledge about attachment security, the role of sensitive parenting and the developmental outcomes of attachment, and provides a brief discussion of attachment-based interventions.


2020 ◽  

Secure attachment in adolescents seems to be associated with robust mental health and social skills. How the quality of early caregiving impacts on attachment security in adolescence, however, is less clear.


2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (37) ◽  
pp. e2101046118
Author(s):  
Claudia F. Nisa ◽  
Jocelyn J. Bélanger ◽  
Birga M. Schumpe ◽  
Edyta M. Sasin

Attachment theory is an ethological approach to the development of durable, affective ties between humans. We propose that secure attachment is crucial for understanding climate change mitigation, because the latter is inherently a communal phenomenon resulting from joint action and requiring collective behavioral change. Here, we show that priming attachment security increases acceptance (Study 1: n = 173) and perceived responsibility toward anthropogenic climate change (Study 2: n = 209) via increased empathy for others. Next, we demonstrate that priming attachment security, compared to a standard National Geographic video about climate change, increases monetary donations to a proenvironmental group in politically moderate and conservative individuals (Study 3: n = 196). Finally, through a preregistered field study conducted in the United Arab Emirates (Study 4: n = 143,558 food transactions), we show that, compared to a message related to carbon emissions, an attachment security–based message is associated with a reduction in food waste. Taken together, our work suggests that an avenue to promote climate change mitigation could be grounded in core ethological mechanisms associated with secure attachment.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia F Nisa ◽  
Jocelyn Belanger ◽  
Birga Mareen Schumpe ◽  
Edyta Sasin

Attachment is an ethological approach to the development of durable affective ties betweenhumans. We propose that secure attachment is crucial to understand climate change mitigationbecause the latter is inherently a communal phenomenon resulting from joint action, and requiring collective behavioral change. Here we show that secure (vs. insecure) attachment is associated with a higher willingness to pay taxes and prices to mitigate climate change (Study 1 N=1006 U.S. nationally representative sample). We also establish that priming attachment security increases acceptance (Study 2 N=173) and perceived responsibility about anthropogenic climate change (Study 3 N=209). Next, we show that priming attachment security, compared to a standard National Geographic video about climate change, increases monetary donations to a proenvironmental group in politically moderate and conservative individuals (Study 4 N=196). Lastly, in a preregistered field study conducted in the United Arab Emirates involving 130 nationalities (Study 5 N=143,558 food transactions), we show that an attachment-based message reduces food waste compared to a message related to carbon emissions. Our work suggests that a new avenue to promote climate change mitigation could be grounded in core ethological mechanisms associated with secure attachment.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (19) ◽  
pp. 10748
Author(s):  
Nayara Malheiros Caruzzo ◽  
João Ricardo Nickenig Vissoci ◽  
Andressa Ribeiro Contreira ◽  
Aryelle Malheiros Caruzzo ◽  
Lenamar Fiorese

For a long time, competitive sport has focused only on aspects related to performance. However, studies in social psychology have indicated the importance of focusing on the human development of athletes, which can occur through training environments that promote psychological well-being. Thus, this study aimed to analyze the impact of the coach-athlete attachment style, mediated by the coach’s leadership style, on the mental toughness of athletes in the world beach volleyball context. Elite beach volleyball athletes (n = 65), participants of the World Tour 2018, were part of the study. The Coach-Athlete Attachment Scale (CAAS), Mental Toughness Index (MTI) and Leadership Scale for Sport (LSS) were used as instruments. For data analyses we used polychoric correlation and a bias-corrected factor score path analysis. Path analysis showed that perceived secure attachment was positively associated with athletes’ mental toughness (0.24; 0.31; 0.25), but leadership styles did not mediate this relationship. For athletes with anxious attachment profiles, the perception of autocratic leadership style was associated with athletes’ mental toughness (1.01; p = 0.03), when their interaction style is focused on coaching-instruction. It concludes that the secure attachment relationship can bring increases in levels of athletic mental toughness, whereas for athletes with insecure attachment, the autocratic style was shown to be associated with the highest levels of mental toughness.


2010 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Stievenart ◽  
Isabelle Roskam ◽  
Jean Christophe Meunier ◽  
Gaelle van de Moortele

This study explores reciprocal relations between children’s attachment representations and their cognitive ability. Previous literature has mainly focused on the prediction of cognitive abilities from attachment, rarely on the reverse prediction. This was explored in the current research. Attachment representations were assessed with the Attachment Story Completion Task (Bretherton, Ridgeway, & Cassidy, 1990); the IQ was measured with the WPPSI-III (Wechsler, 2004). Data were collected twice, at a two-year interval, from about 400 preschoolers. Reasoning IQ was found to influence the development of secure attachment representations, while attachment security and disorganization influenced later verbal IQ. The implications of the findings for both clinical and research purposes are discussed in the light of the interactions between cognitive abilities and attachment representations.


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