Parents' attachment orientation, interviewers' support, and children's memory for a mildly distressing event

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Attachment Theory
• Memory Research

Background:

• Parental attachment orientations influence children's memory accuracy for distressing events.
• Insecure parental attachment is associated with less accurate child memory reports.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate if socially supportive interviewing mitigates memory performance differences in children based on parental attachment.
• To examine the impact of interviewer support on children's recall of a distressing event.

Main Methods:

• Children aged 3-5 years and their caretakers participated in the Preschool Attachment Classification System (PACS).
• Children's memory for the PACS event was assessed by either a supportive or non-supportive interviewer.
• Parental attachment was assessed, and children's free recall accuracy was measured.

Main Results:

• In non-supportive interviews, higher parental attachment avoidance correlated with lower child recall accuracy.
• This association between parental avoidance and child recall was not significant in supportive interviews.
• Higher parental attachment anxiety predicted lower recall accuracy in children of highly avoidant parents.

Conclusions:

• Socially supportive interviewing techniques can enhance children's memory recall accuracy.
• Supportive interviewing may buffer the negative effects of parental insecure attachment on children's memory.
• Findings offer practical insights for memory retrieval practices involving children.