The relations between parent-child attachment, negative and positive emotion, and depressive symptoms in middle childhood

• In Event: Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Topic - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Abstract

Attachment is inextricably linked to emotion (Bowlby, 1988; Cassidy, 1994), although less is known about positive emotion and dynamic measures of emotion in middle childhood. Development of a secure attachment relationship is also predictive of children’s depressive symptoms (Madigan et al., 2016), and this relation has been proposed to be explained by a mechanism such as emotion. This study therefore aims to investigate associations among attachment, emotion, and depressive symptoms by (1) examining how average and dynamic measures of negative and positive emotion relate to attachment patterns and (2) investigating measures of emotion as mechanisms explaining the link between attachment and depressive symptoms in children. Emotion instability was of particular interest as this dynamic measure of emotion can act as a possible gauge of emotion regulation, with wide swings (i.e. increases in instability) indicating emotion as dysregulated (Cole et al., 2004) and low instability indicating better emotion regulation and psychological well-being (Houben et al., 2015).
Based on prior theoretical and empirical work (Brumariu, 2015; Cassidy, 1994; Cooke et al., 2018; Hesse & Main, 2000), it was hypothesized that more securely attached children would report less mean negative emotion, greater mean positive emotion, and less negative and positive emotion instability; more avoidantly attached children would report less mean positive emotion and less negative and positive emotion instability; more ambivalently attached children would report greater mean negative emotion and greater negative and positive emotion instability; and more disorganized children would report greater mean negative emotion, less mean positive emotion, and greater negative emotion instability. The attachment-depressive symptom links would further be explained by these emotion measures.
Midwestern children (N=102; M=10.40 years) completed a story stem (Granot & Mayseless, 2001; Kerns et al., 2011), daily diary of emotions, and short Children’s Depression Inventory 2 (CDI-2SR[S]; Kovacs & Multi-Health Systems, Inc., 2011). Parents completed the School-Age Temperament Inventory (SATI; McClowry, 1995). Coders considered multiple dimensions from the four story stem stories to code each attachment pattern (secure, avoidant, ambivalent, disorganized) for each participant. Diaries were completed three times per day for five days, from which mean emotion and emotion instability were calculated for negative and positive emotion. Depressive symptoms were derived from the CDI-2SR[S], and withdraw and negative reactivity resulted from the SATI.
After accounting for control variables, attachment security was not related to emotion; greater attachment avoidance was associated with less mean positive emotion; greater attachment ambivalence was associated with greater mean negative and mean positive emotion; and greater attachment disorganization was associated with greater positive emotion instability (Table 1). Approximately 20% of the variance in depressive symptoms was accounted for by attachment (R2=.1996). Based on correlations, we conducted mediation analyses, but the association between attachment ambivalence and depressive symptoms (Figure 1) was not explained by mean negative emotion (95% CI [-.0006, .0420]). Thus, attachment either has a direct relation to depressive symptoms or is mediated by other factors. The findings provide insight into the emotion profiles for attachment patterns in middle childhood and have clinical implications for children’s mental health.

Authors

• Carli Obeldobel, Kent State University
  Presenting Author

• Kathryn A Kerns, Kent State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jeffrey Ciesla, Kent State University
  Non-Presenting Author