Cognitive science has demonstrated that we construct knowledge about the world by abstracting patterns from routinely encountered experiences and storing them as semantic memories. This preregistered study tested the hypothesis that caregiving-related early adversities (crEAs) shape affective semantic memories to reflect the content of those…

Addressed to judges and the legal profession in juvenile justice, this article argues that social attachment theory, particularly parent-child bonding, can be valuable in conceptualizing child abuse and neglect and making decisions about intervention in child abuse and neglect cases. Three categories of deficient parent-child bonds are described…

An attachment theory framework is applied toward understanding the emergence of depressive symptomatology and lower perceived competence in maltreated and nonmaltreated children. Confirmed hypotheses that maltreated children with nonoptimal patterns of relatedness show elevated depressive symptomatology and lower competence, whereas nonmaltreated…