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This meta-analytic review examines the association between attachment and internalizing symptomatology during childhood, and compares the strength of this association with that for externalizing symptomatology. Based on 42 independent samples (N = 4,614), the association between insecurity and internalizing symptoms was small, yet significant (d = 0.15, CI 0.06~0.25) and not moderated by assessment age of internalizing problems. Avoidance, but not resistance (d = 0.03, CI - 0.11~0.17) or disorganization (d = 0.08, CI - 0.06~0.22), was significantly associated with internalizing symptoms (d = 0.17, CI 0.03~0.31). Insecurity and disorganization were more strongly associated with externalizing than internalizing symptoms. Discussion focuses on the significance of attachment for the development of internalizing versus externalizing symptomatology.

This study addresses the extent to which insecure and disorganized attachments increase risk for externalizing problems using meta-analysis. From 69 samples (N -5,947), the association between insecurity and externalizing problems was significant, d = 0.31 (95% CI: 0.23, 0.40). Larger effects were found for boys (d = 0.35), clinical samples (d = 0.49), and from observation-based outcome assessments (d = 0.58). Larger effects were found for attachment assessments other than the Strange Situation. Overall, disorganized children appeared at elevated risk (d = 0.34, 95% CI: 0.18, 0.50), with weaker effects for avoidance (d = 0.12, 95% CI: 0.03, 0.21) and resistance (d = 0.11, 95% CI: -0.04, 0.26). The results are discussed in terms of the potential significance of attachment for mental health.

The present report used data from the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation to investigate the factor structure and childhood abuse and/or neglect related antecedents of adults’ attachment states of mind in a high-risk sample. Adult Attachment Interviews (AAIs) were collected when participants were age 26 years (N = 164) and Current Relationship Interviews (CRIs) were collected from participants (N = 116) and their romantic partners when target participants were between ages 20 and 28 years (M = 25.3 years). For both the AAI and the CRI, exploratory factor analyses revealed that (a) attachment state of mind scales loaded on two weakly correlated dimensions reflecting dismissing and preoccupied states of mind and (b) ratings of unresolved discourse loaded on the same factor as indicators of preoccupied states of mind. Experiencing any subtype of abuse and/or neglect, especially during multiple developmental periods, and experiencing multiple subtypes of abuse and/or neglect during childhood were associated with risk for preoccupied (but not dismissing) AAI states of mind regarding childhood relationships with caregivers. Analyses focused on the particular subtypes, and perpetrators indicated that the predictive significance of childhood abuse/neglect for adult's AAI preoccupied states of mind was specific to experiences of abuse (but not neglect) perpetrated by primary caregivers. In addition, experiencing chronic or multiple subtypes of childhood abuse and/or neglect increased risk for dismissing (but not preoccupied) CRI states of mind regarding adult romantic partners.

Drawing on a two-wave, multimethod, multi-informant design, this study provides the first test of a process model of spillover specifying why and how disruptions in the coparenting relationship influence the parent–adolescent attachment relationship. One hundred ninety-four families with an adolescent aged 12–14 (M age = 12.4) were followed for 1 year. Mothers and adolescents participated in two experimental tasks designed to elicit behavioral expressions of parent and adolescent functioning within the attachment relationship. Using a novel observational approach, maternal safe haven, secure base, and harshness (i.e., hostility and control) were compared as potential unique mediators of the association between conflict in the coparenting relationship and adolescent problems. Path models indicated that, although coparenting conflicts were broadly associated with maternal parenting difficulties, only secure base explained the link to adolescent adjustment. Adding further specificity to the process model, maternal secure base support was uniquely associated with adolescent adjustment through deficits in adolescents' secure exploration. Results support the hypothesis that coparenting disagreements undermine adolescent adjustment in multiple domains specifically by disrupting mothers' ability to provide a caregiving environment that supports adolescent exploration during a developmental period in which developing autonomy is a crucial stage-salient task.

A significant gap in the literature on risk factors for psychopathy is the relative lack of research on parental bonding.MethodThis study examines the cross-sectional relationship between maternal and paternal bonding, childhood physical abuse and psychopathic personality at age 28 years in a community sample of 333 males and females. It also assesses prospectively whether children separated from their parents in the first 3 years of life are more likely to have a psychopathic-like personality 25 years later. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that: (1) poor parental bonding (lack of maternal care and low paternal overprotection) and childhood physical abuse were both associated with a psychopathic personality; (2) parental bonding was significantly associated with psychopathic personality after taking into account sex, social adversity, ethnicity and abuse; (3) those separated from parents in the first 3 years of life were particularly characterized by low parental bonding and a psychopathic personality in adulthood; and (4) the deviant behavior factor of psychopathy was more related to lack of maternal care whereas the emotional detachment factor was related to both lack of maternal care and paternal overprotection. Findings draw attention to the importance of different components of early bonding in relation to adult psychopathy, and may have potential implications for early intervention and prevention of psychopathy.

The present study examined young children's attachment behaviors during paternal incarceration and reported on initial validity of a new measure used to rate children's attachment-related behaviors and emotions during visits in a corrections setting. Seventy-seven children, age 2 to 6 years, and their jailed fathers and current caregivers participated in the home visit portion of the study, whereas 28 of these children participated in the jail visit. The results indicated that 27% of children witnessed the father's crime and 22% of children witnessed the father's arrest, with most children who witnessed these events exhibiting extreme distress; children who witnessed these events were more likely to have insecure attachments to their caregivers. Consistent with attachment theory and research, caregivers who exhibited more sensitivity and responsivity during interactions with children and those who provided more stimulating, responsive, learning-oriented home environments had children who were more likely to have secure attachments (measured with the Attachment Q-Sort). We also found preliminary evidence for the validity of our new measure, the Jail Prison Observation Checklist, in that children's attachment-related behaviors and emotions during the jail visit correlated with their attachment security observed in the home. Our observations indicate that, in certain contexts, noncontact visits with incarcerated parents can be stressful for children and that children's caregivers may play a significant role during these visits.

A considerable body of evidence suggests that early caregiving may affect the short-term functioning and longer term development of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenocortical axis. Despite this, most research to date has been cross-sectional in nature or restricted to relatively short-term longitudinal follow-ups. More important, there is a paucity of research on the role of caregiving in low- and middle-income countries, where the protective effects of high-quality care in buffering the child's developing stress regulation systems may be crucial. In this paper, we report findings from a longitudinal study (N = 232) conducted in an impoverished periurban settlement in Cape Town, South Africa. We measured caregiving sensitivity and security of attachment in infancy and followed children up at age 13 years, when we conducted assessments of hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenocortical axis reactivity, as indexed by salivary cortisol during the Trier Social Stress Test. The findings indicated that insecure attachment was predictive of reduced cortisol responses to social stress, particularly in boys, and that attachment status moderated the impact of contextual adversity on stress responses: secure children in highly adverse circumstances did not show the blunted cortisol response shown by their insecure counterparts. Some evidence was found that sensitivity of care in infancy was also associated with cortisol reactivity, but in this case, insensitivity was associated with heightened cortisol reactivity, and only for girls. The discussion focuses on the potentially important role of caregiving in the long-term calibration of the stress system and the need to better understand the social and biological mechanisms shaping the stress response across development in low- and middle-income countries.

Although reactive attachment disorder (RAD) and disinhibited social engagement disorder (DSED) are acknowledged as valid disorders in young children, controversy remains regarding their validity in adolescence. An unresolved question is whether symptoms of RAD and DSED are better conceptualized as other psychiatric disorders at this age. All adolescents (N = 381; 67% consent; 12–20 years old) living in residential youth care in Norway were interviewed to determine the symptoms and diagnosis of RAD/DSED and other common psychiatric disorders using the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Assessment (CAPA). The construct validity of RAD and DSED, including structural and discriminant validity, was investigated using confirmatory factor analysis and latent profile analysis. Two-factor models distinguishing between symptoms of RAD and DSED and differentiating these symptoms from the symptoms of other psychiatric disorders revealed better fit than one-factor models. Symptoms of RAD and DSED defined two distinct latent groups in a profile analysis. The prevalence of RAD was 9% (95% CI 6–11%), and the prevalence of DSED was 8% (95% CI 5–11%). RAD and DSED are two distinct latent factors not accounted for by other common psychiatric disorders in adolescence. RAD and DSED are not uncommon among adolescents in residential youth care and therefore warrant easy access to qualified health care and prevention in high-risk groups.

How infants shape their own development has puzzled developmentalists for decades. Recent models suggest that infant dispositions, particularly negative reactivity and regulation, affect outcome by determining the extent of parental effects. Here, we used a microanalytic experimental approach and proposed that infants with varying levels of negative reactivity will be differentially impacted by parent–infant synchrony in predicting physiological and behavioral regulation of increasing social stress during an experimental paradigm. One hundred and twenty-two mother–infant dyads (4–6 months) were observed in the face-to-face still face (SF) paradigm and randomly assigned to three experimental conditions: SF with touch, standard SF, and SF with arms’ restraint. Mother–infant synchrony and infant negative reactivity were observed at baseline, and three mechanisms of behavior regulation were microcoded; distress, disengagement, and social regulation. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia baseline, reactivity, and recovery were quantified. Structural equation modeling provided support for our hypothesis. For physiological regulation, infants high in negative reactivity receiving high mother–infant synchrony showed greater vagal withdrawal, which in turn predicted comparable levels of vagal recovery to that of nonreactive infants. In behavioral regulation, only infants low in negative reactivity who received high synchrony were able to regulate stress by employing social engagement cues during the SF phase. Distress was reduced only among calm infants to highly synchronous mothers, and disengagement was lowest among highly reactive infants experiencing high mother–infant synchrony. Findings chart two pathways by which synchrony may bolster regulation in infants of high and low reactivity. Among low reactive infants, synchrony builds a social repertoire for handling interpersonal stress, whereas in highly reactive infants, it constructs a platform for repeated reparation of momentary interactive “failures” and reduces the natural tendency of stressed infants to disengage from source of distress. Implications for the construction of synchrony-focused interventions targeting infants of varying dispositions are discussed.

Qualitative studies suggest that children react to parental imprisonment by developing internalizing as well as externalizing behaviors. However, no previous study has examined the effects of parental imprisonment on children's internalizing problems using standardized instruments, appropriate comparison groups, and long-term follow-up. Using prospective longitudinal data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, we compared boys separated because of parental imprisonment during their first 10 years of life with four control groups: boys who did not experience separation, boys separated because of hospitalization or death, boys separated for other reasons (usually parental disharmony), and boys whose parents were only imprisoned before the boys' births. Individual, parenting, and family risk factors for internalizing problems were measured when boys were ages 8–11 years. Separation because of parental imprisonment predicted boys' internalizing problems from age 14 to 48, even after controlling for childhood risk factors including parental criminality. Separation because of parental imprisonment also predicted the co-occurrence of internalizing and antisocial problems. These results suggest that parental imprisonment might cause long-lasting internalizing and antisocial problems for children.