Representations of Mother-Child Attachment Relationships and Social-Information Processing of Peer Relationships in Early Adolescence

We examined the concurrent associations between early adolescents’ representations of mother-child attachment relationships and how they process social information in their peer relationships. Attachment representations were examined in a normative sample of 97 males and 88 females (mean age = 10.35 years), using an adaptation of the Attachment Doll Story Completion Task. Structural Equation Modeling was used to assess general latent structures of social-information processing (SIP) orientations across the different SIP steps. As expected, secure mother-child attachment representations were positively associated with prosocial SIP orientation and negatively with antisocial SIP orientation. Avoidant attachment was associated negatively with prosocial and distress expression SIP orientations. Ambivalent attachment was positively associated with distress expression SIP orientation. Disorganized attachment was positively associated with SIP distress expression orientation and with antisocial SIP orientation. Results are discussed as reflecting a generalization of social knowledge and regulation strategies from the attachment system to the affiliative system.