Linking Early Life Experiences and Adult Functioning: The Mediating Role of Scripted Attachment Representations

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

A core premise in developmental psychology is that early child-parent experiences shape adults’ psychosocial functioning. Although decades of research have supported this idea, the psychological mechanisms through which early experiences lead to individual differences in adult functioning remain unclear. Attachment theory predicts that the quality of early care shapes the development and consolidation of later constructed mental representations, which in turn influence adult functioning. Increasingly, attachment representations are being assessed via the secure base script knowledge (SBSK), which is designed to evaluate individuals’ set of expectations regarding the sequence of care-related events following distress. This symposium brings together cross-sectional and longitudinal findings from normative- and at-risk, multiethnic samples that highlight the role of SBSK in accounting for the associations between child-parent experiences and both mental health and parenting behaviors in adulthood.
Paper 1 reports on the mediating role SBSK plays in the link between parents’ exposure to early adverse experiences and their sensitive parenting toward their children. Paper 2 present evidence for the mediating role SBSK in late adolescence plays in the association between experiences of parental sensitivity in the first 15 years of life and depressive symptoms at age 26. Paper 3 replicates the findings from the other two papers by providing evidence that parents’ SBSK mediates the associations between their childhood maltreatment experiences and both internalizing symptoms and levels of engagement during parent-toddler interactions. A discussion will integrate the presented findings from a developmental psychopathology perspective, and will highlight SBSK as a potential modifiable target in attachment-based interventions.

Sub Unit

• Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Chair

• Or Dagan, Long Island University Post (LIU Post)

Discussant

• Guy Bosmans, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven)

Individual Presentations

• Secure Base Script Knowledge Mediates The Association Between Parents’ Childhood Adversity And Their Sensitive Parenting - Presenting Author: Christopher Facompre, Stony Brook Unviersity; Non-Presenting Author: Or Dagan, Long Island University Post (LIU Post); Non-Presenting Author: Amy Hyoeun Lee, Hofstra University; Non-Presenting Author: Kristin L Bernard, Stony Brook University

• Secure Base Script Knowledge Mediates The Link Between Early Parental Sensitivity And Depressive Symptoms - Presenting Author: Or Dagan, Long Island University Post (LIU Post); Non-Presenting Author: Renate Buisman, Leiden University; Non-Presenting Author: Marissa Nivison, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities; Non-Presenting Author: Theodore Waters, New York University Abu Dhabi; Non-Presenting Author: Brian E Vaughn, Auburn University; Non-Presenting Author: Kelly K. Bost, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Non-Presenting Author: Maria E. Bleil, University Of Washington; Non-Presenting Author: Deborah Lowe Vandell, University of California - Irvine; Non-Presenting Author: Cathryn Booth-Laforce, University Of Washington; Non-Presenting Author: Glenn I. Roisman, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

• The Intergenerational Consequences of Childhood Maltreatment: Secure Base Script Knowledge as a Mediator - Presenting Author: Lee Raby, University of Utah; Non-Presenting Author: Bailey Speck, University of Utah; Non-Presenting Author: Jennifer Lauren Isenhour, University of Utah; Non-Presenting Author: Sheila E Crowell, University of Utah; Non-Presenting Author: Liz Conradt, Duke University