1985 — 1988 |
Waters, Everett |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Precursors of Socialization Outcomes: a Q-Sort Analysis @ State University New York Stony Brook
A number of recent studies have identified significant relationships between the quality of infant-parent attachment and a wide range of concurrent and subsequent socialization outcomes. Unfortunately, reference to secure attachment does not explain socialization outcomes. Attachment/socialization correlations are data in search of an explanation. This application proposes a detailed longitudinal analysis of the role(s) that child-parent attachment plays in the development of prosocial, antisocial and problem behavior patterns. The application proposes a 4 year longitudinal study of 200 males (from ages 3 through 5 years). The study is designed to evaluate the contributions of: 1) child-parent attachment, 2) stable parental child-rearing practices, and 3) children's patterns of identification, to a wide range of socialization outcomes in early childhood. The principle hypotheses are: 1) The quality of child-parent attachment and characteristics of parental child-rearing practices exert a major interactive influence on a wide range of socialization outcomes; 2) patterns of attachment lead to individual differences in (a) differential attentiveness to and preference for parental values and standards, (b) familiarity with parental behavior, (c) spontaneous reproductions of parental characteristics, (d) responsiveness to parental socialization demands, (e) sensitivity to parental censure, and (f) differential responsiveness to parents as sources of approval and approbation; and 3) the relationship between attachment and socialization is mediated by the impact of individual differences in attentiveness to parents, etc. as moderators of the effect of child rearing practices in middle childhood. The proposed design will also allow us to evaluate the simpler hypothesis that attachment/socialization correlations simply reflect serially independent consequences of child rearing practices that differ among families but are quite stable within families.
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1990 — 1996 |
Waters, Everett |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Adult Attachment Models--Development After Marriage @ State University New York Stony Brook
The first methods for assessing cognitive models of attachment in adulthood have only emerged in the past 3-4 years. Main & Goldwyn's (1984; in press) Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) measure is particularly promising in that several researchers report 75-80% correspondence between patterns of infant attachment at one-year and mother's AAI classification. Parents of securely attached infants are secure in their conceptualizations of relationships with their own parents. Parents of anxiously attached infants tend to dismiss the importance of early relationships to their own parents, or to be preoccupied with angry and inconsistent conceptualizations of relationships to their parents. The goal of this research is to determine whether the AAI is tapping attachment specific variance, that it is stable or shows reasonable degrees of stability and patterns of change over transitions such as marriage and parenthood, and that it has good discriminant validity vis a vis available measures of social adjustment and cognitive/coping styles. This application proposes a longitudinal study of 150 couples from pre- marriage through the third year of marriage. We will also assess steady dating couples and other age matched individuals in order to clarify the interpretation of any changes in AAI classifications in the married and parenting couples. During the course of the project, approximately 50% of the couples will have children. Assessment will include 1) Main & Goldwyn's AAI, 2) a parallel Adult Job Interview (for establishing discriminant validity), 3) interview and self-report measures of social adjustment, 4) measures of coping styles, 5) attachment related personality constructs, 6) marital satisfaction and marital violence, 7) a parenting stress inventory and the Ainsworth Strange Situation in families that have children during the course of the study. The goals of the research are to evaluate the attachment relevance, discriminant validity, and stability of the AAI, and to evaluate the role that adult attachment models play as mediators of personality, life events, and role that adult attachment models play as mediators of personality, life events, and marital influences on infant-parent attachment. We will also evaluate the relationship between adult attachment models and marital characteristics, marital discord, and marital aggression, focussing especially on the role that AAI classifications may play as moderators of established relationships between traits like aggression and spouse abuse.
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1997 — 1998 |
Waters, Everett |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Adult Attachment Models: Development After Marri @ State University New York Stony Brook
This application proposes a five year continuation of an ongoing longitudinal study of attachment working models in adulthood. The current project has yielded significant empirical results and conceptual advances. The proposed project will build on these results to clarify key issues regarding the structure of modern attachment theory: (1) the stability of attachment working models in relation to marriage, collaboration in parenthood, and stressful life events, (2) the relation of working models of subjects' relationships with their parents to working models of their marital relationship at different points in marriage. (3) the relation of working models to marital behavior, partner behavior and partner working models, and differences in how working models relate to marital behavior at different phases of marriage, (4) relations between attachment-theoretical and cognitive-behavioral perspectives on marriage. (5) mechanisms underlying congruence of maternal attachment security and infant attachment security, (6) relations of infant attachment and parenting practices to both maternal and paternal working models, and (7) the cognitive structure of attachment representations. The subjects are 136 married couples recruited as engaged couples 3 months prior to marriage (Phase I) and seen 18 (Phase II) and 36 months (Phase III) later. In the first year of the proposed grant period we will complete the last of our 36 month followups and continue assessments of infant-mother and infant-father attachment. We will conduct home visits to examine secure base behavior with each parent, and also maternal sensitivity. We will also begin to test experimentally the hypothesis that attachment working models are represented in the form of domain specific, temporal-causal narrative sequences (scripts of secure base interactions). Beginning in the second year of the grant period we will begin conducting follow-up attachment (3-year old children) and couples assessments (5 years after Phase I). Assessments of children and couples would continue throughout the funding period. These follow-ups are important because, as explained below, attachment-marriage relations may be differently organized at different stages in marriage and such relations may not be evident in concurrent and short-term follow-ups. They also allow us to examine the magnitude and content of relations between working models and marital behavior into the early years of parenting, and to explore relations of adult and child attachment status with child secure base behavior, maternal sensitivity, marital status, and cooperation with parenting partnership. In brief, the proposed project will provide significant clarifications of the working model concept and the notion that cognitive representations of the child-parent relationship influence later attachment related cognitions and behavior. It -will also help bring interest in working models and secure base behavior into the mainstream of marital theory, and research, where implications for therapy are more likely to flourish.
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1999 — 2000 |
Waters, Everett |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Adult Attachment Models: Development After Marriage @ State University New York Stony Brook
This application proposes a five year continuation of an ongoing longitudinal study of attachment working models in adulthood. The current project has yielded significant empirical results and conceptual advances. The proposed project will build on these results to clarify key issues regarding the structure of modern attachment theory: (1) the stability of attachment working models in relation to marriage, collaboration in parenthood, and stressful life events, (2) the relation of working models of subjects' relationships with their parents to working models of their marital relationship at different points in marriage. (3) the relation of working models to marital behavior, partner behavior and partner working models, and differences in how working models relate to marital behavior at different phases of marriage, (4) relations between attachment-theoretical and cognitive-behavioral perspectives on marriage. (5) mechanisms underlying congruence of maternal attachment security and infant attachment security, (6) relations of infant attachment and parenting practices to both maternal and paternal working models, and (7) the cognitive structure of attachment representations. The subjects are 136 married couples recruited as engaged couples 3 months prior to marriage (Phase I) and seen 18 (Phase II) and 36 months (Phase III) later. In the first year of the proposed grant period we will complete the last of our 36 month followups and continue assessments of infant-mother and infant-father attachment. We will conduct home visits to examine secure base behavior with each parent, and also maternal sensitivity. We will also begin to test experimentally the hypothesis that attachment working models are represented in the form of domain specific, temporal-causal narrative sequences (scripts of secure base interactions). Beginning in the second year of the grant period we will begin conducting follow-up attachment (3-year old children) and couples assessments (5 years after Phase I). Assessments of children and couples would continue throughout the funding period. These follow-ups are important because, as explained below, attachment-marriage relations may be differently organized at different stages in marriage and such relations may not be evident in concurrent and short-term follow-ups. They also allow us to examine the magnitude and content of relations between working models and marital behavior into the early years of parenting, and to explore relations of adult and child attachment status with child secure base behavior, maternal sensitivity, marital status, and cooperation with parenting partnership. In brief, the proposed project will provide significant clarifications of the working model concept and the notion that cognitive representations of the child-parent relationship influence later attachment related cognitions and behavior. It -will also help bring interest in working models and secure base behavior into the mainstream of marital theory, and research, where implications for therapy are more likely to flourish.
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