Emotional and Adrenocortical Responses of Infants to the Strange Situation: The Differential Function of Emotional Expression

The aim of the study was to investigate biobehavioural organisation in infants with different qualities of attachment. Quality of attachment (security and disorganisation), emotional expression, and adrenocortical stress reactivity were investigated in a sample of 106 infants observed during Ainsworth’s Strange Situation at the age of 12 months. In addition, behavioural inhibition was assessed from maternal reports. As expected, securely attached infants did not show an adrenocortical response. Regarding the traditionally defined insecurely attached groups, adrenocortical activation during the strange situation was found for the ambivalent group, but not for the avoidant one. Previous ndings of increased adrenocortical activity in disorganised infants could not be replicated. In line with previous ndings, adrenocortical activation was most prominent in insecure infants with high behavioural inhibition indicating the function of a secure attachment relationship as a social buffer against less adaptive temperamental dispositions. Additional analyses indicated that adrenocortical reactivity and behavioural distress were not based on common activation processes. Biobehavioural associations within the different attachment groups suggest that biobehavioural processes in securely attached infants may be different from those in insecurely attached and disorganised groups. Whereas a coping model may be applied to describe the biobehavioural organisation of secure infants, an arousal model explanation may be more appropriate for the other groups

More than maternal sensitivity shapes attachment : infant coping and temperament

The aim of this longitudinal studywas to investigate the effect of a set of factors from multiple levels of influence: infant temperament, infant regulatory behavior, and maternal sensitivity on infant’s attachment. Our sample consisted of 48 infants born prematurely and their mothers. At 1 and 3 months of age, mothers described their infants’behavior using the Escala de Temperamento do Beb´e. At 3 months of age, infants’ capacity to regulate stress was evaluated during Tronick’s Face-to-Face Still-Face (FFSF) paradigm. At 9 months of age, mothers’ sensitivity was evaluated during free play using the CARE-Index. At 12 months of age, infants’ attachment security was assessed during Ainsworth’s Strange Situation. A total of 16 infants were classified as securely attached, 17 as insecure-avoidant, and 15 as insecure-resistant. Mothers of securely attached infantswere more likely than mothers of insecure infants to describe their infants as less difficult and to be more sensitive to their infants in free play. In turn, secure infants exhibited more positive responses during the Still-Face. Infants classified as insecureavoidant were more likely to self-comfort during the Still-Face and had mothers who were more controlling during free play. Insecure-resistant exhibited higher levels of negative arousal during the Still-Face and had mothers who were more unresponsive in free play. These findings show that attachment quality is influenced bymultiple factors, including infant temperament, coping behavior, and maternal sensitivity

The reciprocal relation between children’s attachment representations and their cognitive ability

This study explores reciprocal relations between children’s attachment representations and their cognitive ability. Previous literature has mainly focused on the prediction of cognitive abilities from attachment, rarely on the reverse prediction. This was explored in the current research. Attachment representations were assessed with the Attachment Story Completion Task (Bretherton, Ridgeway, & Cassidy, 1990); the IQ was measured with the WPPSI-III (Wechsler, 2004). Data were collected twice, at a two-year interval, from about 400 preschoolers. Reasoning IQ was found to influence the development of secure attachment representations, while attachment security and disorganization influenced later verbal IQ. The implications of the findings for both clinical and research purposes are discussed in the light of the interactions between cognitive abilities and attachment representations

The parent?infant dyad and the construction of the subjective self

Developmental psychology and psychopathology has in the past been more concerned with the quality of self-representation than with the development of the subjective agency which underpins our experience of feeling, thought and action, a key function of mentalisation. This review begins by contrasting a Cartesian view of pre-wired introspective subjectivity with a constructionist model based on the assumption of an innate contingency detector which orients the infant towards aspects of the social world that react congruently and in a specifically cued informative manner that expresses and facilitates the assimilation of cultural knowledge. Research on the neural mechanisms associated with mentalisation and social influences on its development are reviewed. It is suggested that the infant focuses on the attachment figure as a source of reliable information about the world. The construction of the sense of a subjective self is then an aspect of acquiring knowledge about the world through the caregiver's pedagogical communicative displays which in this context focuses on the child's thoughts and feelings. We argue that a number of possible mechanisms, including complementary activation of attachment and mentalisation, the disruptive effect of maltreatment on parent-child communication, the biobehavioural overlap of cues for learning and cues for attachment, may have a role in ensuring that the quality of relationship with the caregiver influences the development of the child's experience of thoughts and feelings