| Abstract [eng] |
The first years in child’s life are considered to be the most essential for the formation of attachment. The child’s development as well as capacity to start new long-lasting relationships depends on child – mother interaction during the first year. One of the most important aspects of attachment relations is its transmission across generations. Child and maternal characteristics during those interactions as well as context variables have been studied in relation to child attachment outcomes. It is assumed that maternal mental representations influence sensitivity, which influences infant attachment security. Furthermore, infant temperament and maternal stress may influence maternal sensitivity and in this way might be related to infant attachment. Therefore, we can suggest that mother’s attachment style is related to her infant’s attachment security. Moreover, infant attachment is influenced by accumulation of child, maternal and contextual variables. The purpose of this study is to analyze relations between infant’s temperament, attachment security and maternal sensitivity, attachment style and stress. An additional task is to assess the correlation between child attachment security and mother’s age and duration of education. 32 mother and infant dyads participated in this study. All children were firstborns, at the age of 12 months. Face to face, peek-a-boo and arm-restraint procedures were organized to assess children’s positive and negative reactivity at the age of 6 months. Maternal sensitivity was assessed in a free play session with the Ainsworth sensitivity scale, and attachment security was observed using the Attachment Q sort for home observations. Adult Attachment Questionnaire was used to assess mother’s attachment style and Daily Hassles was applied for assessment of maternal stress. Our study showed statistically significant infant and mother attachment relations. There was a 69% match between infant attachment security and mother’s attachment style. Mother’s sensitivity plays the main role in the transmission of attachment relations. We found that mothers of secure infant’s were more sensitive, than those who had insecure ones. Moreover, our study showed a 84% match between infant attachment security and mother’s sensitivity type. The results of infant attachment and temperament relations were contradictory. On the one hand, negative emotionality correlated with infant’s attachment, but match-mismatch data of infant’s temperament and attachment security were not significant. No significant correlations between child attachment security and maternal stress, mother’s age and duration of education were established. Futhermore, we found that maternal sensitivity was related to mother’s attachment style, but not with infant temperament as well as context variables: maternal stress, age and duration of education. |
