Continuity and Discontinuity of Attachment from Infancy through Adolescence

TLDR

The study examined a sample of 30 families drawn from the Family Lifestyles Project, which includes both conventional two-parent and nonconventional family structures. It aimed to investigate how infant Ainsworth Strange Situation classifications, negative life events, and adolescent attachment interview classifications are related. The longitudinal design followed children from infancy through adolescence, assessing attachment at multiple time points and recording life events. Findings revealed a 77 % stability of secure versus insecure attachment, that infant attachment predicted adolescent attachment, that negative life events were linked to attachment change, and that family lifestyle type did not influence attachment continuity or security.

Abstract

This study reports relations between infant Ainsworth Strange Situation classifications, negative life events, and Adolescent Attachment Interview classifications. Overall, the stability of secure versus insecure classifications was 77%, and infant attachment classification was a significant predictor of adolescent attachment classification. Chi‐square analyses indicate that negative life events are significantly related to change in attachment classification. The sample ( n = 30) is drawn from the Family Lifestyles Project (FLS), an ongoing longitudinal study of children's development within the context of nonconventional family lifestyles. The distribution of family lifestyles within this study, unlike those in the full FLS sample, represent a higher proportion of conventional two‐parent families (40%). There were no differences between adolescents reared in conventional or nonconventional families in the distribution of adolescent attachment security, the experience of negative life events, or the continuity of attachment from infancy through adolescence.