Attachment Representations in 6-Year-Old Children from One and Two Parent Families in Germany

Abstract

Viewed from the perspective of attachment theory, coping with the separation and divorce of parents requires that children reorganize their mental model of attachment. Secure attachment models may be disrupted, while insecure attachment models may be strengthened. According to findings from research on divorce, this process of family reorganization takes about two years. Attachment representations in middle childhood can be assessed by new methods that rely on the symbolic medium of story completion in doll play. Based on five coded attachment story narratives, the Attachment Story Completion Task (ASCT) by Bretherton and Ridgeway, and the German Coding and Classification System by Gloger-Tippelt and König, permits the assessment of secure, avoidant, ambivalent and disorganized attachment representations reliably, and to rate attachment security on a four-point-scale. In this study we compare the attachment representations in ASCT of 51 children from two parent families with 60 six-year-old children from one parent, all mother families who experienced separation/divorce, and were still in the phase of family reconstruction. The children of single mothers demonstrated fewer secure and more insecure attachment representations, in particular more avoidant ones. Moreover, in the children from one parent, but not from two parent families a significant gender effect emerged. Results have been discussed considering further risk factors in the one parent families and possible influences of children's attachment representations in the school setting.

The Attachment Doll Play Assessment: Predictive Validity with Concurrent Mother-Child Interaction and Maternal Caregiving Representations

“…Research findings support theoretically derived predictions regarding the associations between attachment security children’s emotional and behavior adjustment in community and risk samples ( Oppenheim, 1997 ; Verschueren and Marcoens, 1999 ; Goldwyn et al, 2000 ; Rydell et al, 2005 ; Goodman et al, 2007 , 2012 , 2013 ; Green et al, 2007 ; Venet et al, 2007 ; Bureau and Moss, 2010 ; Stievenart et al, 2011 ; Webster and Hackett, 2011 ; Torres et al, 2012 ; Miljkovitch et al, 2013 ; Salari et al, 2016 ). Research findings also support predictions of a disproportionate amount of attachment insecurity (especially disorganized children) in risk samples (e.g., divorce, maltreatment, adoption, foster care, institutionalized) ( Gloger-Tippelt and König, 2007 ; Katsurada, 2007 ; Román et al, 2012 ; Torres et al, 2012 ; Bovenschen et al, 2016 ).…”

Sex, attachment, and the development of reproductive strategies

“…In section 4.1, it was explicitly stated that studies with children as old as six usually fail to detect sex differences. Thus, the fact that three of the studies included in Bakermans-Kranenburg & van IJzendoorn's meta-analysis involve 6-year-old children (Toth et al 2006;Bureau et al 2006;Gloger-Tippelt et al 2007) predictably reduces the overall effect size.…”

Behavioural precursors of attachment representations in middle childhood and links with child social adaptation

“…More recently, Gloger‐Tipelt and her colleagues (Gloger‐Tippelt, Gomille, Koenig, & Vetter, 2002; Gloger‐Tippelt & Koenig, 2007) also designed a coding system for doll play for use with 6‐year‐olds using Bretherton and Ridgeway's ASCT set of stories. They showed good four‐way correspondence between their classifications and both attachment behaviour in infancy and maternal attachment representations in 66 six‐year‐old children, κ=.39.…”