3-046 - The Secure Base Script in Middle Childhood and Early Adolescence: Construction, Organization, and Impacts on Psychopathology

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Research suggests that early attachment experiences are represented and carried forward as a cognitive script (secure base script; SBS) and impacts later functioning. This symposium focuses the SBS during middle childhood/early adolescence. This period is critically important in terms of the development/impact of the SBS as children show a marked increase in the capacity to construct/use scripts during this time (Del Giudice, 2015). The first talk examines the formation of a generalized SBS in an 11-year longitudinal study. Results indicated that, although attachment to mother and father were not significantly related during infancy, attachment to mother and father was generalized in the form a SBS by age 12yrs (mother-father SBS, r = .88, p < .001). The second talk examines whether the SBS has a categorical or continuous latent structure during middle childhood using taxometric analyses of a large sample (N = 498). Data from infancy, adolescence, and adulthood suggest that attachment security is continuously distributed. However, cognitive and developmental theory suggests that attachment security may shift latent structure during middle childhood, becoming categorical. Taxometric results confirmed this hypothesis in middle childhood. Finally, the stability, change, and impacts on psychopathology of the SBS were examined in a 2-year longitudinal study. Results revealed that the SBS was stable from middle childhood into adolescence, became more elaborated over time, and impacted psychopathology two years later via effects on Executive Control.

Overall, these results inform our understanding of the development and impact of attachment representations during middle childhood and the transition into adolescence.

Sub Unit

• Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Chair

• Theodore Waters, New York University – Abu Dhabi

Discussant

• Marian Bakermans-Kranenburg, Leiden University

Individual Presentations

• Generalization of Attachment across Mother- and Father-Child Relationships: A Longitudinal Study from 15 Months to 12 Years - Presenting Author: Lea J Boldt, University of Iowa; Theodore Waters, New York University – Abu Dhabi; Grazyna Kochanska, University of Iowa

• Discontinuity in the Latent Structure of the Secure Base Script: Taxometrics Reveal a Representational Shift in Middle Childhood - Presenting Author: Theodore Waters, New York University – Abu Dhabi; Christopher Facompre, New York University – Abu Dhabi; Adinda Dujardin, KU Leuven; Magali Van de Walle, KU Leuven; Lea J Boldt, University of Iowa; Grazyna Kochanska, University of Iowa; Guy Bosmans, KU Leuven

• The Development of the Secure Base Script from Middle Childhood to Early Adolescence: A Two-year Longitudinal Study - Presenting Author: Guy Bosmans, KU Leuven; Magali Van de Walle, KU Leuven; Joke Heylen, KU Leuven; Simon De Winter, KU Leuven; Patricia Bijttebier, KU Leuven