Attachment networks to multiple caregivers: An introduction to a special issue

Abstract

This special issue aims to bolster important research that has been inconsistently and rather scarcely conducted in the past 35 years: the role that multiple caregivers jointly play in the developmental trajectories of children. Despite theoretically and empirically driven calls to assess children's development through the lenses of simultaneous and independent attachment relationships (van IJzendoorn & Tavecchio et al., 1987;van IJzendoorn et al., 1992), attachment research has predominantly focused on mother-child relationships, deeming other caretakers, at best, as subsidiary attachment figures with a marginal influence on the child's development. This special issue aims to expand on the topic by providing historical, ethological, cross-cultural, clinical, methodological, and legal perspectives on the matter.This special issue opens with a review paper by Dagan and Sagi-Schwartz ( 2021), who briefly present an historical account of the nonlinear shift in attachment theory and research, from a wide interest in assessing almost exclusively mother-child attachment relationships, to assessing father-child attachment patterns, and leading up to the current increase in interest and empirical work on attachment network to multiple caregivers. The authors also revisit their recent proposed attachment network assessment models (Dagan & Sagi-Schwartz, 2018, 2020. Karaskiewicz et al. (2021) present an ethological study on the network of attachment in mother-father-infant titi monkey (Plecturocebus cupreus) triads. The authors assessed the change in pair bonding quality before and after the couples' first offspring birth. They show that affiliation between the parents significantly decreased after birth of the first offspring and stayed relatively low even after infants' transition to behavioral independence, with multiple factors contributing to variability in such pair bonding trajectories. Importantly, Karaskiewicz and colleagues highlight a unique perspective on how new members of the attachment network (i.e., newborns) can influence the relationship quality between its existing members (e.g., mothers and fathers).The meta-analysis by Deneault et al. (2021) quantifies the associations between fatherchild attachment and behavior problems across 15 studies. The authors report two intriguing results. The first is that insecure child-father attachment is significantly associated with higher internalizing and externalizing behavior problems compared with secure dyads. The second surprising finding revealed that the effect sizes for insecure child-father attachment are equivalent to those reported in previous meta-analyses on child-mother attachment in relation to behavior problems.The individual participant data meta-analysis by expands on Deneault and colleagues' study-level meta-analysis by examining the associations between attachment networks to mothers and fathers and behavior problems. This study indicates

Configurations of mother–child and father–child attachment relationships as predictors of child language competence: An individual participant data meta‐analysis

“…Commensurate with the calls for an increased emphasis on the role of fathering on child development (Ahnert & Schoppe‐Sullivan, 2020; Bakermans‐Kranenburg et al, 2019; Cowan & Cowan, 2019) are calls to consider the network of children's early attachments as predictors of child outcomes (Dagan et al, 2021; Sroufe, 2016; Van IJzendoorn et al, 1992; Van IJzendoorn & Tavecchio, 1987). In this study, we sought to heed these calls by assessing the predictive power of children's early attachment networks to mother and father on child language competence.…”

Attachment relationship quality with mothers and fathers and child temperament: An individual participant data meta-analysis.

“…Alongside a recent rise in research on the correlates and predictive significance of attachment networks to mothers and fathers (Brown et al, 2022; Dagan, Sagi-Schwartz, & van IJzendoorn, 2021; Deneault et al, 2022; Iwanski et al, 2021; Kuo et al, 2019), we assessed the degree to which child temperament is associated with these attachment networks. In line with our hypotheses, negative emotionality was modestly associated with a higher number of children’s insecure-resistant attachment relationships, but not with the number of insecure-avoidant and disorganized attachment relationships children had with mothers and fathers.…”

“…Except for one study (Lickenbrock & Braungart-Rieker, 2015), wherein child negative emotionality was assessed via mothers’ self-reports, negative emotionality in all other studies included in the current report was reported by both mothers and fathers. Following the previous study by the Collaboration for Attachment to Multiple Parents and Outcomes Synthesis (Dagan, Sagi-Schwartz, & van IJzendoorn, 2021), in the case of multiple informants, we averaged parents’ reports to arrive at a single negative emotionality score. Across all attachment classifications, both mother-reported and father-reported child temperament were significantly correlated and to a similar magnitude, regardless of whether children had concordant or discordant attachment relationships with their parents (see ).…”

What attachment scholars can learn from research on Black family resilience

“…The predominant focus of attachment research on the quality of children's attachment to one person (usually the mother) has been overly narrow and based on observations of Euro‐American nuclear families (Keller, 2018). Thus, integrating perspectives on Black family resilience could advance attachment research by including multiple caregivers (e.g., fictive kin and fathers; Tyrell & Masten, 2022; see also Dagan & Sagi‐Schwartz, 2021), and assessing unique, additive, and interactive effects of diverse sources of security on positive Black children's development. Integrating these perspectives could also broaden the scope of who serves as a secure base for children to consider fictive kin, natural mentors, and spiritual community members (e.g., by using measures that delineate diverse secure base/safe haven roles).…”