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Predicting children's anxiety from early attachment relationships
Yair Bar-Haim1, Orrie Dan, Yohanan Eshel
1The Adler Center for Research in Child Development and Psychopathology, Department of Psychology, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat Aviv, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel. yair1@post.tau.ac.il
Journal of Anxiety Disorders
|February 6, 2007
Summary
Infants with anxious-ambivalent attachment showed higher school and social phobia in childhood. However, this attachment style did not predict clinically significant anxiety levels in a general population sample.
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Child Psychiatry
Background:
- Attachment theory posits early relationships influence later emotional development.
- Anxious-ambivalent attachment is characterized by distress and insecurity in infant-caregiver interactions.
- Previous research suggests a link between insecure attachment and later anxiety symptoms.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if anxious-ambivalent infant attachment predicts higher childhood anxiety.
- To examine specific anxiety subtypes, including school and social phobia, in relation to attachment style.
Main Methods:
- Longitudinal study assessing 136 infants using Ainsworth's Strange Situation Procedure at 12 months.
- Children and mothers completed the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) at 11 years of age.
Main Results:
- Children with anxious-ambivalent attachment exhibited increased school phobia compared to securely attached peers.
- Ambivalently attached boys showed higher social phobia levels than securely attached boys at age 11.
- No significant association was found between anxious-ambivalent attachment and clinically significant anxiety levels in this normative sample.
Conclusions:
- Infant anxious-ambivalent attachment is associated with specific childhood anxiety symptoms like school and social phobia.
- These findings suggest a nuanced relationship between early attachment and later anxiety development.
- Further research is needed to understand the clinical significance of these associations in normative populations.
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