Attachment and physiological reactivity to infant crying in young adulthood: Dissociation between experiential and physiological arousal in insecure adoptees

Child and maternal attachment predict school‐aged children’s psychobiological convergence

“…However, this is not always the case, as at least two studies have documented associations between attachment security and greater decreases in RSA (Borelli, Somers, et al, 2016;Schoenmaker et al, 2015). Nevertheless, despite the lack of significant attachment-related differences with regard to RSA in the current study, our findings add to the literature by exploring RSA reactivity in the context of psychobiological convergence.…”

“…The fact that the two patterns of attachment insecurity are associated with opposing RSA reactivity profiles (i.e., avoidant attachment children are more likely, whereas ambivalent children are less likely, to exhibit task‐related decreases in RSA) may explain why studies employing attachment measures that do not differentiate between types of insecurity, such as the present study, may fail to find significant attachment‐related differences in RSA. However, this is not always the case, as at least two studies have documented associations between attachment security and greater decreases in RSA (Borelli, Somers, et al, ; Schoenmaker et al, ). Nevertheless, despite the lack of significant attachment‐related differences with regard to RSA in the current study, our findings add to the literature by exploring RSA reactivity in the context of psychobiological convergence.…”

Mothers' Physiological and Affective Responding to Infant Distress: Unique Antecedents of Avoidant and Resistant Attachments

“…In this study, physiological data used to index RSA were sampled from mothers, limiting our focus to mothers' parasympathetic (i.e., RSA) responding to infant distress. However, the growing literature on the psychophysiology of attachment has provided evidence that individual differences in adult attachment are associated with brain activity and autonomic (both sympathetic and parasympathetic) responding to infant distress (Ablow et al., ; Groh & Roisman, ; Groh, Roisman, Haydon, et al., ; Riem, Bakermans‐Kranenburg, Van IJzendoorn, Out, & Rombouts, ; Schoenmaker et al., ; but see Leerkes et al., ). Thus, future research might examine a broader range of measures of mothers' physiological responding in relation to infant attachment (see Leerkes, Su, Calkins, Supple, & O'Brien, for a similar argument with regard to links between maternal physiological and behavioral responding).…”

A proposal for a brief-term post-adoption intervention in the attachment-perspective: a single case study with a late-adopted child and his adoptive mother

“…Recent longitudinal attachmentbased studies on adoption and maternal sensitivity showed that more sensitive parenting -in infancy middle childhood, and/or adolescence-predicted continuity of secure attachment of adopted children from infancy to adolescence, less inhibited and delinquent behaviours in adolescence and secure attachment representations in young adulthood (Beijersbergen, Juffer, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & van IJzendoorn, 2012;Pace, Di Folco, Guerriero, Santona, & Terrone, 2015a;Schoenmaker et al, 2015a; IJzendoorn, 2013;van der Voort et al, 2014). In addition, while secure adoptees showed a well-integrated response to infant distress in young adulthood, insecure adoptees showed a deactivating strategy, revealed by dissociation between experiential and physiological arousal (Schoenmaker et al, 2015b). Finally, no associations were found between early attachment security, attachment disorganization, maternal sensitivity and the diurnal cortisol curve of adoptees at 23 years old (van der Voort et al, 2014).…”