Citation

Roisman GL, Padrón E, Sroufe LA, Egeland B. Child Dev. 2002; 73(4): 1204-1219.

Affiliation

Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 55455, USA. roism001@tc.umn.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2002, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

12146743

Abstract

Past research with the Berkeley Adult Attachment Interview demonstrates that retrospectively defined earned-secures (who coherently describe negative childhood experiences) parent as effectively as do continuous-secures (who coherently describe positive childhood experiences), but manifest liabilities in the form of depressive symptomatology. This article presents data from a 23-year longitudinal study that replicate and extend prior research, testing a key premise that earned-secures so defined actually have a history of insecure attachments that change over time and/or endure consistently harsh or ineffective parenting in their youth. Discrepant with assumptions, retrospective earned-secures were not more likely than continuous-secures to have been anxiously attached in infancy and were observed in childhood and adolescence to have encountered among the most supportive and structured maternal parenting in a high-risk sample. Prospectively defined earned-secures (operationalized using participants' infant attachment classifications) did indeed go on to have success in their close relationships, many without reporting relatively high levels of internalizing distress in adulthood.

Language: en