Poster #145 - Links Between use of the Secure Base Script and Preschool Children’s Knowledge About Emotions

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

In his articulation of attachment theory, Bowlby suggested the close tie between attachments as emotional bonds and the presumption that attachment and emotion were inextricably linked in development (e.g., Ainsworth, 1973; Bowlby, 1958, 1969/1982, 1977; Sroufe, 1996). Then, it is not surprising that attachment researchers have been studying the links between attachment security and several aspects of emotion development (e.g., Berlin & Cassidy, 2003; Brumariu, 2015; Waters, Wippman, & Sroufe, 1979). The majority of studies have focused on the role of attachment in the development of emotion regulation, and only a few have explored the relation between attachment security and knowledge about emotions.
Following Waters and Waters (2006), we suggest that the Secure Base Script (SBS) lies at the core of mental representations of attachment. Our aim is to analyze the relation between SBS as a measure of children’s attachment representation (secure base use and support) and their emotion understanding.
Participants were 40 preschool children (19 boys and 21 girls). Ages range from 48 to 60 months (M= 51.6; SD= 3.84). The Attachment Story completion Task was used to assess children’s attachment representations. Story stems were presented to the child to elicit narratives regarding attachment behaviors toward caregivers by using dolls and household props. For this study only three - monster, separation and reunion stories were coded for SBS. Two independent coders rated the stories on a 7-point scale based on a modification of Waters, Rodrigues, and Ridgeway (1998) coding system. A global score was given to the three stories. Emotional knowledge was assessed using the Affect Knowledge Test. This measure uses puppets with detachable faces that depict happy, sad, angry and afraid expressions. The four basic emotions related tasks aim to assess children's abilities to label and recognize emotions, and to infer causes of emotions from stereotypical and non-stereotypical situations. The verbal section of the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence was used to assess children’s vocabulary and verbal comprehension.
Preliminary results show significant correlations between non-stereotypical causes of emotions and SBS (r = .39; p > .05) and total emotion knowledge with SBS (r = .41; p < .05). Once we identified some sex differences for non-stereotypical causes of emotions and total of emotion knowledge, a partial correlation controlling for sex was computed. Significant correlations between the SBS score and non-stereotypical causes of emotions and total emotion knowledge remained significant (rs= .34 and rs= .35; ps< .05, respectively).
Our data suggest that children with secure attachment histories (who routinely experience caregivers warmth, nurturance and protection when needed or desired), as indexed by their mental representations of attachment-relevant information, tend to have a larger fund of emotional life knowledge than do children who do not use the SBS as the framework for their narratives.
To conclude, our findings support and add value to the work demonstrating the relation between attachment measures and emotional life during early childhood. They also support the utility of the SBS concept and the ASCT scoring protocol used.

Authors

• Marta Antunes, ISPA - Instituto Universitário
  Presenting Author

• Carla Fernandes, ISPA - Instituto Universitário
  Non-Presenting Author

• Marília Fernandes, ISPA - Instituto Universitário
  Non-Presenting Author

• Catarina Perpétuo, ISPA - Instituto Universitário
  Non-Presenting Author

• Antonio Santos, William James Center for Research, ISPA-Instituto Universitário
  Non-Presenting Author

• Manuela Veríssimo, ISPA - Instituto Universitário
  Non-Presenting Author