hand and the stability of the infant-mother attachment relationship on the other were ..... However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
Infant Mental Heath Journal,
Vol. 6. No. 2, Summer 1985
Maternal Correlates of Stability and Change in Infant-Mother Attachment
A N N FRODI W E N D Y GROLNICK LISA BRIDGES
University of Rochester
ABSTRACT: The relations between maternal control style, sensitivity, and childrearing attitudes on one hand and the stability of the infant-mother attachment relationship on the other were examined in a sample of 38 mother-infant dyads. The mother-child pairs were observed during a structured play session and in Ainsworth's Strange Situation when the infants were 12. and 20 months old, a developmental period characterizcd by increased autonomous functioning. Our rcsults suggested that infants whose mothers had nonpunitive childrearing attitudes, were sensitive. and supportive of their infants' striving toward autonomy remained. or became. secure in their attachment relationship over their second year of life. Mothers who were more punitive, more controlling, and less sensitive had infants who either remained or became insaurely attached across this developmental period. While previous research has linked attachment stability to socioeconomic factors, the present investigation points to the importance of more subtle interactive variables to the understanding of the attachment relationship.
The issue of stability of individual differences in infant-mother attachment recently has received increased attention among developmental psychologists. Despite the evidence that security of attachment is stable in a relatively stable environment, some recent studies have found surprisingly low rates of stability. In a middle-class sample, Waters (1978) found 96% stability of attachment classifications between 12 and 18 months, Connell (1976) reported 80.9% stability, and Main and Weston (1981) 86% stability with the father and 73% with the mother over the same time period in their samples. Substantially lower rates of stability were observed by Thompson, Lamb, and Estes (1982) and by Vaughn, Egeland, Sroufe, and Waters (1979), 53% and 622, respectively. Thompson et al. (1982) attributed the instability that they observed to changes in maternal employment and nonmaternal care, while Vaughn et at. (1979) demonstrated a relationship between frequency of stress experienced by their low SES The authors are grateful to all the infants and their mothers who participated in the study and to Connie Brunelle, Charles Friedman, Kathleen Holt, Sara Misch, Beth Netter. John OBrien, Nancy Robinson, Roberta Roscnstein. and Michael Schofel for their assistance in the collection and reduction of the data.
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Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health
Ann Frodi. Wendy Grolnick and Lka Bridges
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families and attachment instability. To date, only two studies have examined maternal correlates of attachment stability. Farber (1981) showed that maternal personality attributes such as anxiety and dependence, assessed both pre- and postnatally, were related to changes in attachment relationships, and Egeland and Farber (1984) demonstrated an association between maternal hostility and suspiciousness and a change from a secure to an insecure infant-mother relationship. Thus, little research has attempted to link specific maternal dispositions or behaviors to changes in the infant-mother attachment bond. When the infant enters the stage of increased autonomy striving in his second year (Erikson, 1950), one might expect that the degree to which the mother is sensitive to, and supportive of, these emerging needs in her infant will influence the way in which the infant experiences the quality of his relatiohship with his mother. Deci (1975) examined adults' response tendencies on a continuum that ranged from control to sup port of autonomy in children. He suggested that autonomy-supportive adults facilitate feelings of self-determination, while control may undermine children's perceptions of having initiated their own behavior. In the present short-term longitudinal study we examined the effects of maternal sensitivity, attitudes, and behavioral tendencies toward control vs. support of autonomy on stability and change in the infant-mother attachment relationship. We expected maternal sensitivity, nonpunitive childrearing attitudes, and support of autonomy to be associated with stability of a secure attachment relationship. Conversely, maternal insensitivity, more punitive childrearing attitudes, and tendencies toward control were expected to be related both to insecurity and instability of the attachment bond. METHOD Subjects Forty-one mothers and infants were observed during structured toy play and in the Strange Situation (Ainsworth & Wittig. 1969)when the infants were 12 months old. Thirty-eight of these dyads returned for an identical aSSessment at 20 months. The subjects were recruited through birth announcements in a local newspaper. There were 24 male and 17 female infants (at I2 months). All infants were from intact families. born at term and healthy. The mothers ranged in age from 22 to 40 (M = 28.9) at the time of their infants' births. Twenty of the mothers were primiparous. while 21 had one or more older children. All subjects were white and were distributed across social classes I to IV,(I = 21.5%. I1 = 19%. 111 = 3896, and IV = 21.546) on the basis of Hollingshead's (1957)Two-Factor Index of Social Position.
Mother-child Play Session After consent was obtained, the mother and infant were seated on the floor, whereupon the mother was presented with three age-appropriate toys (Busy Box. T o p 0 8 Bear, and Shape Sorter) one at a time, each for 2 minutes, by a female experimenter. The experimenter asked the mother to "demonstrate the toy to your infant and sit next to him/her while he/she plays with the toy." The instructions were intentionally vague in order to maximize the variability of mothers' responses to the situation. The toy play was videoand audiotapcd. The tapes later were analyzed in 10-second intervals of interaction. Maternal behavior was rated for predominant level of behavior on three scales' (Grolnick, Frodi. & Bridges, 1984), each of which ranged from 1 (controlling) to 5 (autonomy-oriented). These scales were constructed on the basis of the theoretical and empirical work of Dcci (e.g., 1975). The three scales tapped maternal vocalizations, mater'The three scales of maternal control style may be obtained from the authors.
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Infant Mental Health Journal
nal tasksriented behavior, and maternal affect. Controlling communications were defined as those that sought to change the infant’s ongoing activity (e.g., verbal prohibitions and directions, guiding the child‘s hand away from one part of a toy, or stem disapproving affect). An example of a vocalization that was rated as most controlling (1) was: “Don’t play with that one.” A controlling task-dirccted behavior consisted. for example, of the mother twice completing the task herself. A predominantly negative hedonic tone, as indicated by frowns, for example, was rated as most controlling on the affect measure. Autonomy-oriented communications were those used by mothers to help maintain the infant’s ongoing activity (e.g., verbal information or feedback, holding the toy still so the infant could manipulate it. or positive encouraging affect). An example of a highly autonomy-oriented (5) vocalization was: “You put that in nicely, what will you do next?’ For task-directed behavior, an example of a highly autonomy-oriented response was sitting close to the baby. clearly involved in his/her behavior and waiting for a cue for help. A predominantly positive hedonic tone, as indicated by e.g.. smiles or laughter, was rated as 5 on the affect scale. In each case, the maternal control attempts occurred when the child was engaged in some aspect of toy play. Mean control-to-autonomy scores were computed for each of the three scalcs across intervals and toys. When the mother was not attending to the child or task during an interval, the interval was not included in the analyses. The mothers’ sensitivity to their infants’ communications also was rated from this session (at 12 months only), using Ainsworth’s (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978) 9-point sensitivity scale, on which 9 denotes highly sensitive and 1 highly insensitive maternal behavior.
Strange Situation After the Cminute play Jession, the attachment assessment began. The procedure used was the standard Strange Situation developed by Ainsworth and Wittig (1969). It involves seven 3-minute episodes during which the mother and a female stranger alternately enter and leave the room in a fixed sequence. The episodes are arranged to create gradually increasing stress for the baby so that attachment behaviors in relation to the parent are elicited and can be observed. Of particular importance are the infant’s responses in reunions with its mother after separation. Five different females alternated as strangers throughout the study. From videotapes of the session, each infant was rated on the six 7-point interactive scales described by Ainsworth et al. (1978): Proximity and contact seeking, contact maintaining, resistance, avoidance, distance interaction, and search directed to the mother, and the five scales (excluding search) of behavior directed to the stranger. On the basis of these ratings, each infant was classified as either sccurely attached (group B), anxiously attached-avoidant (group A), or anxiously attached-ambivalent, resistant (group C).
Questionnaires A background questionnaire yielded information about demographic variables such as education and occupation of the parents and number of children. Childrearing attitudes were asscsscd by use of the Maternal Childrearing Attitudes Questionnaire (Field, Widmayer, Stringer, & Ignatoff, 1980), which includes 13 questions. each with two-choice responses, (e.g.. “A baby should be fed: (a) on schedule; (b) when he’s hungry”). A high score indicates optimal (as defined by Field et al., 1980) and a low score more punitive
childrearing attitudes. At the 20-month assessment, an additional background questionnaire asked the mothers to indicate whether they employed substitute child care and/or had experienced any of several major life changes since the 12-month assessment. such as a move to a new home, divorce, major illness, a new birth or pregnancy, or a job change.
Reliability Two trained observers independently rated maternal behavioral control on the three maternal scales. Initial interrater reliability for the scales was rs >.92 at 12 months and IS >.67 at 20 months. When raters disagreed on a score, they discussed the discrepancy until consensus was attained. A different set of observers rated maternal sensitivity. Interrater-reliability for the sensitivity was 75% prior to discussion, after which consensus was attained. The Strange Situation tapes were rated by one highly trained pair of raters. For purposes of reliability, approximately 50% also were rated by the senior investigator. When initial scores were discrepant, the relevant tape segment was reviewed and discussed until consensus was attained. There was 80% agreement on the interactive scales at 12 months and 78% at 20 months prior to discussion. The discussion then resulted in complete agreement on the infant-mother attachment classifications as either A, B, or C.
Ann Frodi. Wendy Grolnick and Lisa Bridges
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RESULTS Relations among maternal variables were examined first. The three scales of maternal control style were correlated in the following way: At 12 months-vocalizations and taskdirected behavior, r = .44, p
