No abstract

Most attachment theorists assume that parenting style is the central mechanism linking the quality of parents' attachment with their parents and adaptation in their children. Outside the attachment tradition, family risk models assume that many family factors affect children's adaptation, chief among them being couple relationship quality. The present study tests an integrated model that considers both theoretical and empirical links between attachment theory and family risk research. Seventy-three fathers and mothers whose first child was about to make the transition to elementary school were administered the Adult Attachment Interview and a new Couple Attachment Interview. The parents were also observed in separate visits during kindergarten year in interaction with each other and with their child. At the end of first grade, we obtained children's academic achievement test results and teachers' checklist observations of internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Structural equations revealed that a family risk model that includes information from working models of attachment and observations of couple interaction predicts substantial variation in children's adaptation to elementary school.

No abstract

The current studies were designed to investigate if the Emotion Context Insensitivity (ECI; Rottenberg & Gottlib, 2004) hypothesis is applicable across the time course of emotion. Recent affective science research has pointed to the importance of considering anticipation and maintenance of emotion. In the current studies, we assessed emotion responses among college students with depression symptoms in anticipation of, during, and after an emotional picture using the emotion modulated startle paradigm. People with and without depression symptoms did not differ in blink magnitude in anticipation of emotional pictures suggesting that some anticipatory processes may not be impaired in with depression symptoms. In contrast, individuals with depression symptoms did not exhibit blink magnitudes that varied by valence, either during viewing or after the pictures were removed from view. These findings suggest that ECI is relevant not only for those diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, but also for people with depression symptoms that may not cross the diagnostic threshold. These data point also point to the importance of considering the time course of emotion to better understand emotional deficits in individuals with differing levels of depression symptoms. Identifying where emotion goes awry across the time course of emotion can help inform treatment development.

This study examined whether working models of attachment are associated with observed positive emotion, sadness, and anger during marital conflict. Individuals (n = 176) from a longitudinal study of families participated in the current cross-sectional study. Narrative interviews assessed the unique and combined contribution of attachment representations based on parents (adult attachment) and partner (couple attachment). The influence of partner's attachment, depression symptoms, and sex of participant was also examined. Hierarchical linear models demonstrated that one's couple attachment security predicts one's observed positive emotion, whereas the partner's couple attachment security predicts one's observed negative emotion. Partner's depression symptoms moderated the effects of partner's couple attachment. Adult attachment was not related to observed emotional behavior between partners. These findings have important clinical implications for individual, couple, and family therapy.