1-108 - Rethinking the intergenerational transmission of attachment: meta-analytic findings and new perspectives

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

The past three decades have seen intense study of the association between parental attachment representations and parent-child attachment quality. Meta-analytic results of the first ten years of research supported the hypothesis of intergenerational transmission of attachment (Van IJzendoorn, 1995), but also posed questions that were addressed in the next two decades, such as the gap in our understanding of transmission. This symposium takes stock and looks forward. The first paper revisits the meta-analysis on intergenerational transmission of attachment with published and unpublished data spanning three decades, enabling powerful tests of moderators and more precise quantification of parameters, including mediation by sensitivity. The second paper focuses on an alternative model of intergenerational transmission of attachment assessing the mediating role of maternal state of mind between more general secure base script knowledge and maternal insight into infant behavior, and the moderating role of maternal insight into infant behavior between maternal sensitivity and mother-infant attachment. The third paper presents intergenerational transmission of disorganized attachment from two perspectives: as predicted by unresolved maternal state of mind and as predicted by maternal disorganized attachment in the Strange Situation with her own mother during infancy. Results of these methods simultaneously predicting infant disorganized attachment in the second generation are presented as well. The fourth paper presents data on conditions in which intergenerational transmission of attachment is not to be expected. Findings indicate that intervention efforts impact child attachment more immediately than maternal state of mind.

Sub Unit

• Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Chairs

• Carlo Schuengel, Vu University Amsterdam

• Marije L Verhage, Vu University Amsterdam

Individual Presentations

• Intergenerational transmission of attachment and mediation by caregiver sensitivity: new meta-analytic findings - Presenting Author: Marije L Verhage, Vu University Amsterdam; Carlo Schuengel, Vu University Amsterdam; Sheri Madigan, Hospital for Sick Chidren; Pasco Michael Fearon, University College London; Mirjam Oosterman, Vu University Amsterdam; Rosalinda Cassibba, University of Bari, Italy; Marian J Bakermans-Kranenburg, Leiden University; Marinus H. Van IJzendoorn, Leiden University

• Mediating and moderating processes underlying the association between maternal cognition and infant attachment - Presenting Author: Erinn J Hawkins, Iwk Health Centre; Sheri Madigan, Hospital for Sick Chidren; Greg Moran, University of Western Ontario; David R Pederson, The University of Western Ontario

• The intergenerational transmission of infant attachment patterns across two generations - Presenting Author: Lee Raby, University of Delaware; Ryan Davies Steele, Univ of Minnesota; Elizabeth A Carlson, University of Minnesota; L Alan Sroufe, Univ of Minn

• When NOT to expect intergenerational patterns of attachment: When mothers are depressed and/or carrying a high trauma burden - Presenting Author: Miriam Steele, New School for Social Research,Graduate; Sheree L Toth, University of Rochester; Anne Murphy, Albert Einstein College of Medicine; Dante Cicchetti, University of Minnesota; Fred A Rogosch, University of Rochester; Howard Steele, New School for Social Research,Graduate