Journal article
The Significance of Early Parent-Child Attachment for Emerging Regulation: A Longitudinal Investigation of Processes and Mechanisms From Toddler Age to Preadolescence
Developmental psychology, Vol.56(3), pp.431-443
03/2020
DOI: 10.1037/dev0000862
PMCID: PMC7041853
PMID: 32077715
Abstract
Eisenberg, Cumberland, and Spinrad (1998; Eisenberg, Spinrad, & Cumberland, 1998) included parent-child attachment as a key dimension of the early emotion socialization environment. We examined processes linking children's early attachment with social regulation and adjustment in preadolescence in 102 community mothers, fathers, and children. Security of attachment, assessed at 2 years, using observers' Attachment Q-Set (Waters, 1987), was posited as a significant, although indirect, predictor of children's adaptive social regulation at 10 and 12 years. We proposed that security initiated paths to future social regulation by promoting children's capacities for emotion regulation in response to frustration at 3, 4.5, and 5.5 years: having to suppress a desired behavior, observed in delay tasks, to regulate anger, observed in parent-child control contexts, and a traitlike tendency to regulate anger when frustrated, rated by parents. We conceptualized adaptive social regulation at 10 and 12 years as encompassing regulation of negative emotional tone, observed in diverse parent-child interactions, parent-rated regulation of negativity in broad social interactions, and child-reported internalization of adults' values and standards of conduct. Multiple-mediation analyses documented two paths parallel for mother- and father-child relationships: From security to emotion regulation in delay tasks to internalization of adults' values, and from security to parent-rated traitlike regulation of anger to parent-rated regulation of negativity in broad social interactions. Two additional paths were present for mothers and children only.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- The Significance of Early Parent-Child Attachment for Emerging Regulation: A Longitudinal Investigation of Processes and Mechanisms From Toddler Age to Preadolescence
- Creators
- Lea J Boldt - Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, The University of IowaKathryn C Goffin - Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, The University of IowaGrazyna Kochanska - Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, The University of Iowa
- Contributors
- Suniya S Luthar (Editor)Eric F Dubow (Editor)Tracy L Spinrad (Editor)Amanda Sheffield Morris (Editor)
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Developmental psychology, Vol.56(3), pp.431-443
- DOI
- 10.1037/dev0000862
- PMID
- 32077715
- PMCID
- PMC7041853
- NLM abbreviation
- Dev Psychol
- ISSN
- 0012-1649
- eISSN
- 1939-0599
- Publisher
- American Psychological Association
- Grant note
- DOI: 10.13039/100000025, name: National Institute of Mental Health, award: R01 MH63096; K02 MH01446; DOI: 10.13039/100000071, name: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, award: R01 HD069171; R01 HD091047
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 03/2020
- Academic Unit
- Psychiatry; Psychological and Brain Sciences
- Record Identifier
- 9984213270902771
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