Investigates the relationship of the affective and fostering of autonomy components of maternal and paternal attachment with indices of instrumental and social/relational competence among high school students. Students rated fathers higher than mothers on fostering of autonomy. Boys rated themselves higher than girls on several indices of…

Two hundred fifty-two students completed the Parental Attachment Questionnaire, the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure, the Multigenerational Interconnectedness Scales, and the Student Adaptation to College Questionnaire, Results from Asian, Asian Indian, Black, Hispanic, and White participants revealed sex differences in predicting college…

Examines the perceptions of self and the attachment relationship to parents in aggressive and nonaggressive rejected children, as compared to children with an average or popular sociometric status. Results generally confirmed the assumption that only the nonaggressive rejected children perceive themselves as less competent and worthy as a person…

Examined relationship between preschoolers' attachment security and child and mother problem-solving behaviors in laboratory tasks. Found that, compared to children with higher scores, children with lower security scores on the Attachment Q-Sort made more unnecessary help-seeking bids and inability statements, were more frustrated, and asked for…

Examined the process of marital disaffection to determine whether there is a pattern of sequential stages. Developed three-phase model of disaffection from the results of in-depth interviews with 49 highly disaffected spouses. Results suggest that marital therapy must involve different goals and interventions during each phase of disaffection to…

Investigated factors associated with relationship quality of 49 first-time pregnant women and their mothers using data from a two-wave mail survey. Compared correlations of intimacy and perceptions of equity with correlations of intimacy and actual help patterns. Findings indicated that perception of equity is more associated with relationship…

Possible relations between mothers' recollection of the degree to which they were accepted by their parents, sense of self, and perceptions of their children to mother-child interaction were studied. There was an 84 percent concordant classification between recall of parental acceptance and observationally assessed dyadic harmony classification.…

Classified 61 children in day care, 13 to 24 months of age, into one of four social orientation groups, based upon frequency of contact with adults and peers relative to the total sample. Groups were compared with respect to behaviors in child care, adult responses, and child care history. (NH)

Examined significant interrelations between measures of family structure and psychological separation and between psychological separation and college adjustment measures among 554 undergraduate students from intact families. Found two significant and stable canonical relations among family structure and psychological separation variables, and a…

Reports the findings of a study that examined the views of seven adoptive couples on postadoption contact with their children's birth parents. Discusses the feelings of the adopters, advantages and disadvantages of contact, and how contact affects the parents' relationship with the child and with the birth parent. (TJQ)

Used standardized mood-induction procedures to examine the relation between attachment security and representational-defensive processes. Subjects were 32 preschoolers ranked most secure and least secure using Attachment Q-Set. Found secure subjects were no more responsive to positive mood inductions, and no less responsive to negative ones, than…

Notes how preceding articles expand the repertoire of theory-relevant assessments of attachment, with a special emphasis on Ainsworth's concept of the secure base. Focuses on a number of issues raised by this collection that are particularly promising for theory development, including assessment of secure-base behavior and maternal sensitivity,…

Examines two illness trajectories, Alzheimer's disease and stroke, to illustrate emerging changes in human development over each course of illness and the increasing importance of attachment behavior among ill elders and their family members. Argues that attachment links ailing older people to their environment, and that attachment is vital if…

Examined associations between attachment quality and children's friendships at 4 and 5 years of age as a follow-up of the sample used in an earlier study by Park and Waters (1989) of secure-secure and secure-insecure friend pairs. Found that the pattern of relations between friendship and attachment changed over time, but attachment pairing…

Two- and three-year-old children differed in their recognition of their own and their mother's features. One year olds, and securely and insecurely attached infants, did not differ. At all ages, securely attached infants exhibited greater complexity than did insecurely attached infants in tasks relating to themselves and their mothers. (BC)