The generality of a multilevel factorial model of social competence (SC) for preschool children was tested in a 5-group, multinational sample (N = 1,540) using confirmatory factor analysis. The model fits the observed data well, and tests constraining paths for measured variables to their respective first-order factors across samples also fit well. Equivalence of measurement models was found at sample and sex within-sample levels but not for age within sample. In 2 groups, teachers' ratings were examined as correlates of SC indicators. Composites of SC indicators were significantly associated with both positive and negative child attributes from the teachers' ratings. The findings contribute to understanding of both methodological and substantive issues concerning SC in young children.

This paper reports the results of a study examining links between maternal representations of attachment, child attachment security, and mother and child narrative styles assessed in the context of reminiscences about shared experiences. Participants were 90 mother - child dyads. Child attachment security was assessed using the attachment Q-set and maternal attachment representations were measured using a recently designed instrument that assesses the script-like qualities of those representations. Analyses examined dependencies in the mother - child memory talk data and then assessed the overlap between both mother and child reminiscing styles and the attachment variables. Narrative styles of both the mothers and their children were coherent and consistent for each dyad member. Furthermore, maternal narrative style (e.g., specific and elaborative questions, using confirming evaluation comments) was significantly related to child participation in the narrative. Maternal and child attachment variables were positively and significantly correlated, and child security was positively associated with maternal narrative style. Maternal secure base scripts were also found to be significantly related to the number of references to emotions in both mother and child narratives as well as to children's overall participation in the memory talk. The pattern of results suggests that attachment representations serve as one influence on the manner(s) in which mother - child dyads think about and discuss emotion-laden content relevant to the child's personal autobiography. Furthermore, the results are consistent with the notion that the manner in which children organize their thoughts about emotion are (at least potentially) shaped by the narrative styles of their parents.

During recent years, fathers' involvement has been addressed as a key source of family well‐being and positive child development. However, the pathways to father involvement and its consequences for child development are varied, influenced by social, cultural, and ecological variables, and lack a systematic integration. This paper aims to bridge this gap by offering a systematic review of studies examining the psychosocial processes of father involvement during early childhood over the last 10 years. A database search was performed using a combination of relevant keywords, leading to identification of 3,655 articles, with 109 manuscripts assessed for eligibility, and finally 86 included. Most of the studies examine determinants of father involvement, with an emerging number of studies relying on the father's assessment and longitudinal designs. Nevertheless, the focus on White middle‐class families is dominant, leaving unexplored father involvement in other cultures and contexts. The findings are analyzed aiming to open new avenues for future research.

Attachment theory and research are drawn upon in many applied settings, including family courts, but misunderstandings are widespread and sometimes result in misapplications. The aim of this consensus statement is, therefore, to enhance understanding, counter misinformation, and steer family-court utilisation of attachment theory in a supportive, evidence-based direction, especially with regard to child protection and child custody decision-making. The article is divided into two parts. In the first, we address problems related to the use of attachment theory and research in family courts, and discuss reasons for these problems. To this end, we examine family court applications of attachment theory in the current context of the best-interest-of-the-child standard, discuss misunderstandings regarding attachment theory, and identify fac

The secure-base phenomenon is central to the Bowlby/Ainsworth theory of attachment and is also central to the assessment of attachment across the lifespan. The present study tested whether mothers' knowledge about the secure-base phenomenon, as assessed using a recently designed wordlist prompt measure for eliciting attachment-relevant stories, would predict their children's securebase behavior, as assessed by observers in the home and summarized with the Attachment Q-set (AQS). In each of three sociocultural groups (from Colombia, Portugal, and the US), scores characterizing the quality of maternal secure-base narratives elicited using the word-list prompt procedure were internally consistent, as indicated by tests of cross-story reliability, and they were positively and significantly associated with the child's security score from the AQS for each subsample. The correlation in the combined sample was r(129) = .33, p < .001. Subsequent analyses with the combined sample evaluated the AQS item-correlates of the secure-base script score.These analyses showed that mothers whose stories indicate that they have access to and use a positive secure-base script in their story production have children who treat them as a “secure base” at home. These results suggest that a core feature of adult attachment models, in each of the three sociocultural groups studied, is access to a secure-base script. Additional results from the study indicate that cross-language translations of the maternal narratives can receive valid, reliable scores even when evaluated by non-native speakers.

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Studies of families with adopted children are of special interest to attachment theorists because they afford opportunities to probe assumptions of attachment theory with regard to the developmental timing of interactions necessary to form primary attachments and also with regard to effects of shared genes on child attachment quality. In Bowlby's model, attachment-relevant behaviors and interactions are observable from the moment of birth, but for adoptive families, these interactions cannot begin until the child enters the family, sometimes several months or even years post-partum. Furthermore, because adoptive parents and adopted children do not usually share genes by common descent, any correspondence between attachment representations of the parent and secure base behavior of the child must arise as a consequence of dyadic interaction histories. The objectives of this study were to evaluate whether the child's age at the time of adoption or at the time of attachment assessment predicted child attachment security in adoptive families and also whether the adoptive mother's internal attachment representation predicted the child's attachment security. The participants were 106 mother -child dyads selected from the 406 adoptions carried out through the Lisbon Department of Adoption Services over a period of 3 years. The Attachment Behavior Q-Set (AQS; Waters, 1995) was used to assess secure base behavior and an attachment script representation task was used to assess the maternal attachment representations. Neither child's age at the time of adoption, nor age of the child at assessment significantly predicted the AQS security score; however, scores reflecting the presence and quality of maternal secure base scripts did predict AQS security. These findings support the notion that the transmission of attachment security across generations involves mutual exchanges and learning by the child and that the exchanges leading to secure attachment need not begin at birth. These results complement the findings and conceptual arguments offered by Bowlby and Ainsworth concerning the critical influence of maternal representations of attachment to the quality of attachment security in children.

The hypothalamic nonapeptides oxytocin and vasopressin are important modulators of socio-affective behaviours in a wide variety of animal species, including humans. Nevertheless, there is little research addressing their possible roles on socio-affective dimensions of human behaviour across development, during which considerable behavioural and physiological change occurs. Questions still remain about the extent to which findings from adults may directly apply to earlier phases of human development. In this article, we systematically summarize and discuss all existing studies investigating the developmental association of endogenous levels of hypothalamic neuropeptides oxytocin and vasopressin with human social behaviour or on its disruption in paediatric populations. Evidence is sparse insofar as there are still relatively few developmental studies and limited due to correlational research designs and unreliability of methods currently used for neuropeptide measurements in biological fluids. The findings to date generally converge with adult evidence, but also suggest that important differences between age stages may exist. Further studies focusing these differences may prove critical for informing drug development for socio-affective deficits in paediatric populations.