Infant attachment configurations to mothers and fathers predict compliance, defiance, and effortful control in toddlerhood

• In Event: Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Topic - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Abstract

Infant-parent attachment has been theoretically proposed to serve a key regulatory function for children’s emotion, cognition, and behavior, with secure attachment leading to more favorable outcomes, but much of the research supporting this claim has been conducted solely on infant-mother dyads (Cooke, Stuart-Parrigon, Movahed-Abtahi, Koehn, & Kerns, 2016; Pallini et al., 2018; Schneider, Atkinson, & Tardif, 2001; Sroufe, Egeland, Carlson, & Collins, 2009). While research on infant-father attachment has gained traction, studies including fathers often examine their contributions as independent from mothers, which may overlook the interacting influence of multiple attachment relationships on child development. Here, we use a new theoretical approach (Dagan & Sagi-Schwartz, 2018) in which we consider infant attachment to both mothers and fathers as a configuration. The gradient within their theory comes from whether additional secure attachments (additive hypothesis) yields more positive outcomes, whether secure attachment to one parent may supersede insecure attachment with the other parent (buffering hypothesis), and whether secure attachment to one person matters more than secure attachment to the other parent (hierarchical hypothesis) or if attachments serve functionally equivalent purposes (horizontal hypothesis).

This study examined whether infant attachment configurations to both mothers and fathers predicted effortful control, compliance, and defiance during toddlerhood. Using data from a longitudinal study on socio-emotional development, 117 infants participated in the Strange Situation, first with their mothers at 12 months, and then again with their fathers at 14 months to assess attachment. When toddlers were 20 months of age, mothers completed a questionnaire assessing toddlers’ effortful control (Putnam, Gartstein, & Rothbart, 2006), and toddlers were video recorded with their mothers and fathers in a gratification delay (Braungart-Rieker et al., 1997) and clean-up task (Kochanska & Aksan, 1995) during a laboratory visit. Toddlers’ compliance and defiance towards parents were coded. Using linear mixed models, attachment configuration in infancy significantly distinguished effortful control, F(3, 624) = 15.41, p < .001, compliance F(3, 637) = 5.53, p = .001, and defiance, F(3, 637) = 11.84, p < .001 in toddlerhood. See Table 1 for means and standard errors.

Infants with a secure attachment only to fathers had significantly lower effortful control and higher defiance at 20 months than the other three attachment configurations. In contrast, infants with a secure attachment to mothers were significantly more compliant than infants with an insecure attachment to mothers.

The purpose of this study was to examine whether attachment configurations predicted toddler compliance, defiance, and effortful control, and indeed, we found that attachment configurations predicted those outcomes. However, our overall pattern of results do not fall neatly in line with Dagan & Sagi-Schwartz’s (2018) attachment configuration framework, which assumes that infants with insecure attachment (either to mother and/or father) yields more “negative” developmental outcomes whereas secure attachment yields “positive” developmental outcomes. Our findings provide evidence that when analyzed from a family systems perspective, attachment security (and insecurity) to mothers and fathers may be functionally distinct for children’s developing socio-emotional competence.

Authors

• Patty Kuo, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
  Presenting Author

• Julie M Braungart-Rieker, Colorado State University
  Non-Presenting Author