The co-evolution of attachment relationships and mother-child interaction: an investigation of the child's first four years

Abstract

The current study is designed to investigate the relation between the co-evolution of attachment relationships and mother-child interaction. The sample consisted of 49 middle-class mother-child dyads participating in a larger ongoing research project. The phases of assessments included in this study began when the children were 12 months and continued until they were 44 months. Specifically, measures of the attachment relationship were made when the children were 12, 19, and 44 months. Mother-child interactions were conducted when the children were 16, 26, and 44 months and served as a basis for measuring scaffolding and parenting style. Four groups were formed from according to the stability of attachment from 12 to 19 months, i.e., stable secure, stable insecure, change to secure, and change to insecure. The ordering of the group means were identical across all dependent measures of maternal scaffolding and parenting style. The stable secure group were the most effective in terms of both scaffolding and parenting style. It is interesting to note that the stable insecure group, those infants classified as insecure at both 12 and 19 months, were the second most effective group. The two unstable groups were consistently low. These results indicate that it is not the attachment classification at a single point in time that is related to parent-child interaction, but the stability of the attachment relationship. More importantly, the disparity between the groups increases with time. Results are discussed in terms of the co-evolution of attachment and parent-child interaction.