Poster #122 - Associations Between Preschool Child-Mother and Child-Father Continuous Attachment and Externalizing Problems in Middle Childhood

• In Event: 3-053 - Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Section - Moral Development

Integrative Statement

A core tenet of Bowlby’s attachment theory stipulates that child-caregiver relationships hold a lasting influence on socioemotional adaptation. In the preschool years, an important developmental period for child socialization and adaptation, meta-analytical results show a modest association between insecure child-mother attachment and externalizing problems (d=.37, k=12, n=708; Fearon et al., 2010). However, previous work presents three main limitations. First, few studies have documented the association between externalizing problems and child-father attachment, despite evidence showing that child-father attachment insecurity may be a more important predictor of conduct problems in the preschool years than child-mother attachment (Bureau et al., 2017). Second, it remains unclear how child-mother and child-father preschool attachment interact to longitudinally predict externalizing problems in middle childhood, despite this period’s importance for socioemotional development (Kerns & Brumariu, 2016). Third, previous research has mostly used categorical attachment measures, even though continuous measures possess increased statistical power and can simultaneously document multiple types of attachment (Fraley & Spieker, 2003). This feature can inform whether different insecure attachment types act together to predict the development of externalizing problems. This study aimed to palliate to these limitations by exploring the longitudinal associations between child-mother and child-father attachment scales and externalizing problems in middle childhood. We first aimed to identify factorial groupings among attachment scales and expected to find similar factors for child-mother and child-father dyads. We then sought to explore the association between factors and externalizing problems; we expected to find stronger associations for child-father than child-mother factors. The sample comprised 144 children (83 girls) and their parents (Time 1: M=3.91, SD=.73; Time 2: M=8.81, SD=.99). At Time 1, children participated in a laboratory session with each parent. Children’s attachment behaviors were evaluated during a separation-reunion procedure with each parent (Cassidy et al., 1992) and coded with a continuous coding system (Preschool and Early-School Age Attachment Rating Scales Moss et al., 2015). This instrument comprises a 1-9 scale for each attachment type (security, avoidance, ambivalence, behavioral-disorganization, caregiving-control, and punitive-control; intraclass correlations ranged between fair and excellent). At Time 2, parents completed the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman, 1997) to report on their child’s externalizing problems (conduct problem: α=.72, hyperactivity/inattention: α=.80, externalizing: α=.83). A principal component analysis with Varimax rotation identified two child-mother attachment factors: disorganization (reversed security, behavioral-disorganization, caregiving-control, and punitive-control) and avoidance (avoidance and reversed ambivalence), and three child-father factors: opposition-confrontation (reversed security, ambivalence, behavioral-disorganization, and punitive-control), avoidance, and caregiving-control. Correlational analyses (Table 1) revealed associations between conduct problems and child-father factors only (positive association with opposition-confrontation and negative with controlling-caregiving). A linear multiple regression (Table 2) showed that child-father opposition-confrontation remained a significant predictor of conduct problems when controlling for sociodemographic variables and child-mother avoidance and disorganization factors. These findings provide the first evidence of the different underlying nature of child-mother and child-father preschool attachment, and expand upon previous research (e.g., Bureau et al., 2017) by documenting the lasting unique influence of child-father attachment on externalizing problems. Future research ought to further explore the influence of child-father oppositional-confrontational attachment on socioemotional adaptation.

Authors

• Audrey-Ann Deneault, University of Ottawa
  Presenting Author

• Kim Yurkowski, University of Ottawa
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ann Hérard, University of Ottawa
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jean-Francois Bureau, University of Ottawa
  Non-Presenting Author