Parental Attachment and Children’s Memory for Emotional Life Events: The Moderating Role of Elaborative Reminiscing

• In Event: 1-138 - Adult Attachment Style: Implications for Parenting Behavior and Child Outcomes

Integrative Statement

Parental attachment has been related to children’s memory for emotional experiences, such that children whose parents have insecure attachment (avoidance or anxiety) are less accurate in their memory and more suggestible (e.g., Chae et al., 2014). We examined whether parents’ elaborative reminiscing buffers against such children’s memory deficits. When parents engage their children in highly elaborative reminiscing by embellishing upon details and asking open-ended questions, children tend to produce longer and more detailed recounts (Fivush et al., 2006). Although attachment is theoretically related to parental reminiscing styles, studies have not consistently confirmed the relationships (Fivush & Sales, 2006; McDonnell et al., 2016). We hypothesized that (1) children of less secure parents would demonstrate less accurate memory and higher suggestibility overall, (2) parental elaboration would be positively associated with children’s accuracy, and (3) highly elaborative parental reminiscing would reduce differences in children’s memory and suggestibility associated with parental attachment.

Method

Seventy-two children aged 3-5 years and their parents participated. Parents were interviewed by phone regarding four events when their child felt happy, sad, scared, and angry. Memory questions were created for each child using parents’ reports. At a university laboratory, each parent-child dyad discussed the events. The child was then interviewed with free recall and 8 specific and 8 misleading questions about each event. Parents verified children’s answers. The Experiences in Close Relationships scale (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007) measured parents’ avoidance and anxiety. Parental elaboration was computed for each event as the frequency of elaborative questions, elaborative statements, and evaluation. Memory measures were proportion correct to free recall and proportion correct and commission errors to specific and misleading questions about each event. Elaboration and memory scores for three distressing (sad, scary, and angry) events were averaged.

Results

Regression models were tested with children’s age, parental avoidance, parental anxiety, and parental elaboration as independent variables. The Avoidance X Elaboration and Anxiety X Elaboration interactions were then separately added to the models (Tables 1 & 2). Children of more anxious parents were less likely to resist misleading questions. Children of highly elaborative parents produced more accurate free recall about distressing events. Parental elaboration significantly interacted with attachment. Simple slope tests indicated that, among children of less elaborative parents, higher anxiety predicted more commission errors to specific and misleading questions about happy events, βs ≥ .35, ps ≤ .02, and less correct answers to specific questions regarding distressing events, β = -.27, p = .049, and higher avoidance predicted more commission errors to specific questions about happy events, β = .41, p = .02. None of these relations were significant for children of highly elaborative parents, │β│s ≤ .34, ns.

Discussion

Although children of avoidant or anxious parents generally show poorer performance, if the parents are elaborative during reminiscing conversations, their memory deficits and heightened suggestibility might be overcome. Insecure parents and their children may profit from interventions to engage in highly elaborative reminiscing. This may help the children feel comfortable accurately recounting their personally experienced emotional events during interactions with an unfamiliar adult.

Authors

• Yoojin Chae, Texas Tech University
  Presenting Author

• Ivette Noriega, Texas Tech University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Torey Griggs, Texas Tech University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lauren Kelly, Southern New Hampshire University
  Non-Presenting Author