The Significance of Infant Attachment Security for Socioemotional Outcomes and Academic Skills Across Development

• In Event: Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Topic - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Abstract

Recent meta-analytic evidence on the predictive significance of the quality of children’s early attachments to their primary caregivers demonstrates that infant attachment is modestly associated with peer social competence (r = .19; Groh, Fearon, et al., 2014) and externalizing behavior (r = -.15; Fearon et al., 2010), but weakly associated with internalizing symptoms in childhood (r = -.07; Groh et al., 2012). Nonetheless, these studies by Groh and colleagues are notably limited by: (1) the synthesis of mostly underpowered studies, (2) a focus on only the earliest available assessment of attachment and each outcome variable from each study, and (3) a lack of accounting for potential confounders, including demographic data and direct observations of early caregiving. In addition, (4) no meta-analysis to date has studied the legacy of early attachment security for academic skills.
In light of these limitations, we conducted a set of pre-registered analyses to assess the extent to which the pattern of associations (i.e., magnitude and relative rank order) observed in the quantitative reviews described above could be reproduced in two landmark investigations of the predictive significance of infant attachment security—the higher-risk Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation (MLSRA) sample and the normative-risk Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD) cohort. Our pre-registered analyses of the MLSRA and SECCYD built on the meta-analytic work by Groh and colleagues in several ways. First, we aggregated all available homotypic indicators of each socioemotional outcome across development in both datasets. Second, we studied outcome data from three informants separately (i.e., mothers, teachers, and self-report). Third, we examined the value of compositing assessments of early attachment in potentially improving the predictive validity of the Strange Situation procedure. Fourth, we examined whether associations were robust to demographic covariates and maternal sensitivity. Fifth and finally, we included academic outcomes averaged over development.
Consistent with meta-analytic results, findings revealed relatively modest associations between infant attachment security, as measured by the Strange Situation procedure, and socioemotional outcomes. Specifically, associations between infant attachment and socioemotional outcomes in the MLSRA were comparable or slightly weaker than those produced by the quantitative reviews (see Figure 1). In contrast, the same associations based on the SECCYD were consistently weaker relative to the meta-analyses for all socioemotional outcomes (see Figure 2). Controlling for a set of four demographic covariates or maternal sensitivity further attenuated the observed associations, and accounting for both simultaneously resulted in partial correlations between infant attachment quality and the socioemotional outcomes of less than r = .10. Compositing early attachment security measures did not improve the predictive validity of the Strange Situation in the MLSRA, though a composite measure of three different early attachment measures in the SECCYD did notably improve predictive validity coefficients. Finally, and unexpectedly, associations between early attachment security and academic skills were consistently larger in magnitude than those with respect to the socioemotional outcomes in the MLSRA. In the SECCYD early attachment security was as strongly associated with academic skills as it was with socioemotional outcomes.

Authors

• Paul Caldo, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
  Presenting Author

• Marissa Nivison, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sophia Magro, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lee Raby, University of Utah
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ashley M. Groh, University of Missouri - Columbia
  Non-Presenting Author

• R. Chris Fraley
  Non-Presenting Author

• Elizabeth A Carlson, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jeffry Simpson, University of Minnesota
  Non-Presenting Author

• Glenn I. Roisman, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
  Non-Presenting Author