Poster #152 - The relationship between mother-child attachment, depressive symptoms, and emotion regulation in middle childhood

• In Event: 3-003 - Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

Parent-child attachment relationships are linked to children’s emotion regulation (ER) (Brumariu, 2015; Cassidy, 1994; Parrigon et al., 2015) and well-being, including symptoms of internalizing disorders such as anxiety and depression (Brumariu & Kerns, 2010; Groh et al., 2012; Madigan et al, 2016). Brumariu, Kerns, and Seibert (2012) investigated the relationship between mother-child attachment, ER, and anxiety symptoms in middle childhood, where ER was based on Thompson’s (1994) definition (processes for monitoring, evaluating, and modifying emotions). They found attachment security and disorganization to be related to anxiety symptoms, and these associations were partially mediated by ER processes. We sought to extend these findings by examining the relationship between mother-child attachment, ER processes, and depressive symptoms in middle childhood and by investigating whether ER processes explain the link between attachment and depressive symptoms.
Participants were 114 children (9 to 12 years, M = 10.4 years) from the United States. Children completed a story stem interview (Kerns et al, 2011) that coders scored for attachment security, avoidance, ambivalence, and disorganization. Children also completed the Children’s Depression Inventory (Kovacs et al., 2011) to measure depressive symptoms; the Emotion Expression Scale for Children Poor Emotion Awareness subscale to measure monitoring of emotions (Penza-Clyve & Zeman, 2002); and the Negative Cognitive Errors Questionnaire (Leitenberg et al., 1986) to measure evaluation of emotions. Parents completed a modified Children’s Coping Strategies Scale (Eisenberg et al., 1996) as a measure of modifying emotions, and the Cognitive Coping and Support Seeking subscales were used.
Children who were more secure reported less depressive symptoms while children who were more ambivalent and more disorganized reported greater depressive symptoms (Table 1). Attachment was related to ER in that children who were more avoidant reported greater emotional awareness and sought social support less. Children who were more ambivalent had poorer emotional awareness, greater negative cognitive errors, and sought social support more. Depressive symptoms were related to poorer emotional awareness, greater negative cognitive errors, and more social support seeking (Table 1).
We conducted four bootstrapping multiple mediation analyses, investigating whether ER processes explain the relationship between attachment patterns and depressive symptoms. We found that ER processes (negative cognitive errors) partially explained the relationship between ambivalent attachment and depressive symptoms (95% CI [0.006, 0.067]). Although security and disorganization were related to depressive symptoms, mediation analyses for security and disorganization were not significant.
Our results suggest that attachment is predictive of depressive symptoms in children, although ER processes only explain some of the associations. A tendency to make negative interpretations in emotional situations appears to be one mechanism explaining why ambivalent children are more prone to depressive symptoms. The findings for security or disorganization suggest two explanations: it could be the lack of a secure base, in and of itself, contributes to depressive symptoms directly; or, it could be that ER processes not measured in our study mediate these associations. Our findings underscore the need to continue examining other potential mediating mechanisms that account for the relationship between mother-child attachment and depression in middle childhood.

Authors

• Carli A. Obeldobel, Kent State University
  Presenting Author

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