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Updated: Jun 19, 2026

Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure
Published on: September 19, 2019
Representations of attachment relationships, the self, and significant others in middle childhood
Sharon E Clark1, Douglas K Symons
1IWK Health Centre, Halifax, Nova Scotia. sharon.clark@iwk.nshealth.ca
Introduction:
This research examines the interrelations of attachment security, feelings towards the self, and attributions about others in middle childhood.
Methods:
Five-to nine-year-old children (n=176) completed the Separation Anxiety Test, which provided a measure of attachment security and a puppet interview was used to assess feelings towards the self. A subset of 89 participants received vignettes of social situations with ambiguous outcomes to assess the emotional valence of children's attributions.
Results:
Secure children saw themselves more positively than insecure children. Children who were secure made more positive attributions about the intentions of others, regardless of whether the protagonist was a peer, parent, or teacher.
Conclusion:
The results suggest that attachment style is related to feelings about the self and attributions about the social behavior of others, and thus may provide a foundation for generalized social expectations that underlie working models of social behavior of significant others.
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