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Results for “Object Attachment”

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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1989

Object attachment, thumbsucking, and the passage to sleep.

Cross-cultural studies suggest that children who sleep in the same room as their parents and who are breast-fed are less likely to use an attachment object. The present study examined childrearing practices that emphasize physical proximity of parent and child and use of an attachment object and thumbsucking at bedtime with 126 healthy U.S. infants. Four child-rearing practices were focused on: presence or absence of a caregiver when the child actually fell asleep; mode of feeding; location of the child's bed or sleeping place; whether or not the child slept with the parents during the night. Children who had an adult present as they fell asleep were less likely to use an attachment object or suck their thumbs. In contrast to cross-cultural research, the results of the present study suggest that where a child sleeps during the night or how the child is fed is not as important an influence on the bedtime use of an attachment object or thumbsucking as whether an adult is present as the child actually falls asleep.

Breast Feeding↗
PubMed1984

Transitional object attachments in early childhood and personality characteristics in later life.

The present study empirically assessed aspects of transitional object attachments formed in early childhood and their relationship to personality characteristics in later life. Subjects were college students enrolled in introductory psychology courses. They were assigned to either a transitional object group or a no transitional object group based on self- and parental reports obtained from a detailed questionnaire focusing on early object attachments. Stringent criteria of inanimate object attachments were used in selecting subjects. Subjects selected for the study were administered the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire. Significant personality differences were found between the groups. These preliminary objective findings were discussed in terms of the role of concrete object attachments in early childhood and areas for further research.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1975

Behavioral and hormonal effects of attachment object separation in surrogate-peer-reared and mother-reared infant rhesus monkeys.

Mother-reared and surrogate-peer-reared rhesus monkeys were separated from their respective attachment objects at 6 months of age and tested for the following 9 weeks to determine their home-cage behavior and their pituitary-adrenocortical responses to stress. Both groups displayed a strong immediate behavioral response to separation which was characterized by increased vocalization, increased locomotion, and decreased self-play. However, the surrogate-peer-reared infants showed a subsequent recovery in their levels of self-play whereas the mother-reared infants instead developed stereotypic behavior patterns such as repetitive pacing. The 2 groups displayed similar plasma cortisol responses to weekly sessions in an apparatus equipped with animated toy "monsters". Mother-reared but not surrogate-peer-reared subjects, however, also manifested elevated cortisol levels when an animal in an adjacent cage was captured and removed for stress testing. Mother-reared infant monkeys thus responded in a stronger and more prolonged manner to the loss of their attachment object than surrogate-peer-reared infants. These results suggest that infant rhesus monkeys form stronger attachments to monkey mothers than to inanimate surrogate mothers, a phenomenon which has not been as clearly demonstrated using other indices of attachment strength.

Animals↗
PubMed1998

Childhood vs. adolescence transitional object attachment, and its relation to mental health and parental bonding.

871 participants, 375 boys and 496 girls, mean age 16.7 + 1, were administered the Parental Bonding Instrument (P.B.I.), the Brief Symptom Inventory (B.S.I.), the General Well-Being Questionnaire (G.W.B.) and the Chestnut Lodge Transitional Object Scale. Results supported Winnicott's theory: participants reporting attachment to a Transitional Object (T.O.) in their childhood reported significantly more optimal maternal bonding than participants who were not attached to a T.O. Participants reporting attachment to a T.O. in adolescence had significantly more psychiatric symptoms and less general well-being. Adolescence T.O. attachment might be considered a marker of mental distress in the general, normal population.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Development, experience and relationship patterns: psychological health from the object attachment viewpoint].

In this article the author begins to integrate different theoretical perspectives in order to develop a more comprehensive model of normative and disordered pathways of development, in which genetic heritage, maturation, and individual differences in experience all play a role in the development of individual differences in adaptation. Specifically, differences in early attachment relationships are reconceptualized in terms of learned patterns of processing of cognitive and affective information and learned behavioral strategies for eliciting caregiving from attachment figures. In this model the basic nature of the mind is to be self-correcting so as to yield increasingly sophisticated and adaptive mental and behavioral patterns.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed2000

Attachment to transitional objects: role of maternal personality and mother-toddler interaction.

The origins of soft-object attachments were explored in terms of maternal personality and child temperament as measured by maternal questionnaires and by laboratory observation of child temperament and mother-toddler interactions. Toddlers' soft-object attachments were found to be predicted by the maternal variables of constraint and positive affectivity, the latter in combination with low child activity level.

Child, Preschool↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Mapping the road from childhood trauma to adult somatization: the role of attachment.

OBJECTIVE: This study tested whether insecure attachment mediates the link between childhood trauma and adult somatization. METHODS: A community sample of 101 couples completed self-report measures, including the Relationship Scales Questionnaire, the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, the Somatic Symptom Inventory, the Beck Depression Inventory, and the Conflict Tactics Scale. RESULTS: Childhood trauma was associated with higher levels of somatization and insecure attachment. Insecure attachment style was also associated with higher levels of somatization. Controlling for age, income, and recent intimate partner violence, analyses showed that fearful attachment fully mediated the link between childhood trauma and somatization for women. For men, there was no such mediation, but both childhood trauma and insecure attachment styles made independent contributions to predicting levels of somatization. CONCLUSIONS: Findings are consistent with the hypothesis that, for women, childhood trauma influences adult levels of somatization by fostering insecure adult attachment. For men, findings suggest that trauma and attachment are both important independent predictors of adult somatization. Study results support the idea that childhood trauma shapes patients' styles of relating to others in times of need, and these styles, in turn, influence the somatization process and how patients respond to providers. Screening for attachment style may provide information that could allow health care providers to tailor treatment more effectively.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

Concurrent habits. What would Linus do with his blanket if his thumb-sucking were treated?

Thumb-sucking and object attachment commonly occur during childhood. Object attachment is usually harmless, but thumb-sucking can lead to complications when chronically practiced by older children. Effective thumb-sucking treatment is available, but to my knowledge, it has not been evaluated on thumb-sucking children who are also attached to objects. This study, using a multiple baseline design, shows treatment eliminated thumb-sucking in eight thumb-sucking children with concurrent attachment and that seven of the children subsequently lost interest in their attachment object.

Behavior Therapy↗
PubMed2005

Adult attachment, alexithymia, and symptom reporting: an extension to the four category model of attachment.

OBJECTIVE: A previous study using a three-category attachment model found that avoidant attachment was associated with increased symptom reporting, and that this relationship was largely mediated by negative affectivity and alexithymia. The present study aimed to advance on these findings by using a four-category model of attachment to determine which aspect of avoidant attachment (fearful or dismissing) is related to symptom reporting, and via which mediating variables. METHOD: One hundred and forty-two male and female undergraduates, aged 17-44, completed questionnaire measures of attachment style, alexithymia, self-esteem, positive and negative affectivity, and symptom reporting. RESULTS: Fearful and preoccupied attachment styles, negative affectivity, and alexithymia were all significantly associated with increased symptom reporting, while the dismissing attachment style was not. Regression analyses showed that the relationship between fearful attachment and symptom reporting was partly, but not fully, mediated by alexithymia and negative affectivity, while that between preoccupied attachment and symptom reporting was mediated mainly by negative affectivity. Low self-esteem was associated with symptom reporting only via its association with negative affectivity. CONCLUSIONS: Fearful and preoccupied attachment styles are both associated with symptom reporting via a negative model of the self and increased negative affectivity, but alexithymia is an additional predictor of symptom reporting in individuals with fearful attachment. This difference is thought to be linked to the model of others developed in early interactions with caregivers.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1992

Temperament and the transitional object.

The transitional object attachments and persistent oral habits of 37 three-year-olds were examined in relation to their present and retrospectively rated infantile temperament. Children attached to a transitional object were differentiable from unattached children on infantile but not early childhood temperament, and the predictive temperament pattern differed from the pattern predicting oral habits. Transitional object attachments were independent from oral habits and were interpreted to serve distinct non-pathological developmental functions. The study suggests that temperament plays an etiological role in transitional object attachments, but that the status of the object as a developmental marker is ambiguous.

Anxiety Disorders↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Body dissatisfaction in women with eating disorders: relationship to early separation anxiety and insecure attachment.

OBJECTIVE: It has been suggested that an insecure style of attachment may be one of the factors implicated in the etiology of body dissatisfaction, which, in turn, is a risk factor for eating disorders. The present study analyzed the association among early separation anxiety, insecure attachment, and body dissatisfaction in a clinical sample of 96 women with anorexia nervosa (n = 31) or bulimia nervosa (n = 65). METHODS: Body dissatisfaction was measured using the Body Shape Questionnaire (BSQ), early separation anxiety was measured using the Separation Anxiety Symptom Inventory (SASI), and adult attachment style was measured using the Attachment Style Questionnaire (ASQ). RESULTS: In both anorectic and bulimic women, BSQ scores were strongly correlated with SASI and ASQ scores. In a hierarchical regression model controlling for the confounding effects of body mass index and depressive symptoms, early separation anxiety and preoccupied attachment emerged as significant predictors of high levels of body dissatisfaction. CONCLUSIONS: Based on the cross-sectional findings of this study, insecure attachment appears to be a consistent correlate of negative body image evaluations in women with either anorexia nervosa or bulimia nervosa. If future prospective studies will confirm that an insecure style of attachment plays a role in promoting the development of body dissatisfaction, prevention and treatment of disordered eating pathology might be enhanced by focusing greater attention on attachment relationships.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Pregnancy after perinatal loss: the relationship between anxiety and prenatal attachment.

OBJECTIVE: To determine the difference between levels of pregnancy-specific anxiety and prenatal attachment in a group of pregnant women who previously had a late pregnancy loss and a group of primiparous women of similar gestational age. To also determine the relationship, if any, between anxiety and prenatal attachment in both groups. DESIGN: A nonrandom, comparative descriptive design. SETTING: Participants recruited from medical offices, childbirth classes, and perinatal support groups and newsletters. PARTICIPANTS: A convenience sample of 31 expectant mothers (15 primiparae and 16 who previously experienced a late pregnancy miscarriage, stillbirth, or neonatal death). Both groups of women were in the 2nd or 3rd trimester of their current pregnancy. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Anxiety was measured using the Pregnancy Outcome Questionnaire; prenatal attachment was measured using the Prenatal Attachment Inventory. RESULTS: The loss group showed significantly greater levels of anxiety and significantly lower levels of prenatal attachment compared with a group of primiparous women of a similar gestational age. CONCLUSIONS: Women who experienced a previous late pregnancy loss had a higher level of anxiety related to concerns about the pregnancy and decreased prenatal attachment with the child in the current pregnancy. Women in their first pregnancy had decreased anxiety compared with the loss group. Higher levels of prenatal attachment also were shown in the primiparous group.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

Child and adolescent anxiety disorders and early attachment.

OBJECTIVE: The major aim of this research is to determine whether infants who were anxiously/resistantly attached in infancy develop more anxiety disorders during childhood and adolescence than infants who were securely attached. To test different theories of anxiety disorders, newborn temperament and maternal anxiety were included in multiple regression analyses. METHOD: Infants participated in Ainsworth's Strange Situation Procedure at 12 months of age. The Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age Children was administered to the 172 children when they reached 17.5 years of age. Maternal anxiety and infant temperament were assessed near the time of birth. RESULTS: The hypothesized relation between anxious/resistant attachment and later anxiety disorders was confirmed. No relations with maternal anxiety and the variables indexing temperament were discovered, except for a composite score of nurses' ratings designed to access "high reactivity," and the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale clusters of newborn range of state and inability to habituate to stimuli. Anxious/resistant attachment continued to significantly predict child/adolescent anxiety disorders, even when entered last, after maternal anxiety and temperament, in multiple regression analyses. CONCLUSION: The attachment relationship appears to play an important role in the development of anxiety disorders. Newborn temperament may also contribute.

Anxiety Disorders↗
PubMed2006

Breastfeeding, sensitivity, and attachment.

OBJECTIVE: Our goal was to test the hypothesis that breastfeeding is associated with enhanced infant-mother attachment and its antecedent maternal sensitivity. METHODS: Breastfeeding intent and practice were assessed by questionnaires administered to 152 mothers between 32 weeks of gestation and 12 months postpartum. Early maternal sensitivity was measured by the Sensitivity to Cues subscale of the Nursing Child Assessment Satellite Training Feeding Scale at 3 months, and quality of the mother-infant interaction was measured by the Nursing Child Assessment Satellite Training Feeding Scale at 6 months. Security of attachment was evaluated by the Ainsworth Strange Situation at 12 months. RESULTS: A direct relationship between attachment security and breastfeeding practice was not identified. The quality of the mother-infant interaction at 6 months, rather than the type of feeding, predicted security of attachment. However, mothers who chose to breastfeed displayed greater sensitivity in dyadic interactions with their infants 3 months postnatally than those who chose to bottle feed, and intended breastfeeding duration prenatally correlated with sensitivity 3 months postpartum. Although a path analysis failed to demonstrate contributions of early breastfeeding duration to either sensitivity or security, it did substantiate a significant path between prenatal breastfeeding intent and attachment security mediated by sensitivity. In addition, multivariate analyses revealed that early sensitivity among breastfeeding mothers was an independent predictor of the duration of any and exclusive breastfeeding during the first year. CONCLUSIONS: Although the quality of the dyadic interaction in infancy, rather than feeding type, is predictive of attachment security, mothers who choose to breastfeed display enhanced sensitivity during early infancy that, in turn, may foster secure attachment. Among breastfeeding mothers, higher sensitivity is associated with longer duration of breastfeeding during the first postpartum year. These findings suggest a link between attachment security and breastfeeding.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

Are infants with orofacial clefts at risk for insecure mother-child attachments?

OBJECTIVE: Several risk factors in the early lives of children with clefts are believed to interfere with their development of secure attachments to parents; however, this possibility has rarely been studied empirically. This study compared 12- and 24-month attachment classifications of infants with cleft palate (CP), infants with cleft lip and palate (CLP), and a comparison group of unimpaired infants (COMP). METHOD: Twenty-two CP infants, 24 CLP infants, and 61 matched COMP infants were assessed at 12 and 24 months of age in an urban children's hospital. At both visits, mothers and infants participated in the Strange Situation, which was videotaped and subsequently coded for patterns of attachment behavior. RESULTS: CP infants displayed a lower rate of 12-month attachment security than infants in the CLP or COMP groups. By 24 months, no diagnostic group differences in attachment classification were found. Stable 12- to 24-month attachment classifications were less likely in the CP group (36.3%) than in the COMP (62.3%) group. CP infants who were insecure at 12 months were more likely to become secure by 24 months than were CLP or COMP group infants. CONCLUSIONS: In contrast to previous theory and clinical speculation, the facial appearance of infants with CLP does not appear to affect the early mother-infant relationship adversely. The infancy period is marked by attachment instability for infants with CP, who demonstrated lower-than-expected rates of security at 12 months. However, these problems resolved in nearly all cases by 24 months of age. Most infants with clefts emerged from the first 2 years of life with secure maternal attachments.

Adult↗