Mothers’ Real-Time Emotion Intensity as a Function of Attachment and Proximity to their Children

• In Event: 2-006 - Attachment Styles: A Window Into Emotional Processes Across Development

Integrative Statement

Recently, researchers have begun exploring how attachment style impacts emotions and behavior in parenting (Jones, Cassidy, & Shaver, 2015). However, prior work has almost exclusively examined these links using traitlike or retrospective reports of emotion, which allow recall biases and current mood to impact parents’ reports (Schwarz, 2007). Because the attachment/caregiving system is activated by the presence of the child (George & Solomon, 1996), the impact of attachment on parents’ real-time emotions may also differ as a function of proximity to the child. The current project extends existing research by exploring how attachment anxiety and avoidance influence mothers’ real-time emotions in situations with and without their children.

We assessed the real-time emotions of 145 mothers of young children using ecological momentary assessment (EMA). Individuals were randomly signaled five times a day for 10 days. For each survey, participants rated the extent to which they were feeling nine positive (e.g., proud, joyful) and six negative (e.g., sad, frustrated) emotions at the present moment on a 5-point scale, and indicated whether or not they were with their children. Mothers also reported on their attachment avoidance and anxiety using the Experiences in Close Relationships Revised scale (ECR-R; Fraley et al., 2000). Mothers ranged from 20 to 43 years of age (M = 30.8, SD = 5.0), and were ethnically (41% Hispanic) and socioeconomically diverse (31% earned below $40,000). We predicted that both anxiety and avoidance would be associated with less positive and greater negative real-time emotion intensity, and that these associations would be moderated by within-person presence/absence of children as well as between-person differences in amount of time spent with children.

SAS PROC MIXED was used to run multilevel models for all analyses specifying spatial power error structure to account for correlated errors in data with unequal intervals. Main effects revealed that after controlling for covariates, anxiety was associated with higher negative emotion, b=0.05, SE=0.03, p=.03, but not lower positive emotion. Avoidance was associated with lower positive emotion, b=-0.16, SE=0.07, p=.01, but not higher negative emotion. Only one within-person moderation emerged: When mothers were with their children, there was a negative association between avoidance and positive emotion (see Table). We also found three significant between-person moderations: 1) the positive association between avoidance and negative emotion was only significant among mothers who spent more time with their children during the study (see Figure); 2) the negative association between anxiety and positive emotion was only significant among mothers who spent more time with their children (see Table); and 3) the positive association between anxiety and negative emotion was only significant among mothers who spent less time with their children (see Table and Figure).

These findings support the notion that mothers’ attachment style, along with the presence/absence of their children, predict meaningful individual differences in the nature and intensity of their real-time emotions. As the first study to explore associations between attachment styles and real-time emotional experiences in mothers of young children, this work has important implications for developing interventions that enhance family well-being.

Authors

• Margaret Lee Kerr, University of Wisconsin, Madison
  Presenting Author

• Jessica Borelli, University of California, Irvine
  Non-Presenting Author