The Relation Between Mothers Adopting A Third-person Perspective To Recall Attachment-related Childhood Memories And Their Children’s Early Insecure Attachment

Infants’ confidence in caregivers’ sensitive responsiveness when needed contributes a lot to developing secure internal working models of attachment.The attachment theory regards that caregivers’ responses to infant distress are related to how their caregivers responded to them in childhood.Individuals’ attachment representations are deeply embedded in their attachment-related memory system.The first study aimed to explore if mothers’ vantage perspective of attachment-related memories could be an indicator of their attachment pattern and a predictor of infants’ expectations of caregivers’ responsiveness.Mothers’ vantage perspectives of attachment-related memories and early attachment experiences were measured through a structured interview and the Adult-to-parental Attachment Experience Survey,respectively.Their infants’(N = 60,33 males,M-age = 16.33 months)pupil sizes were recorded when viewing animated displays of responsive and unresponsive caregiving.Results show that mothers adopting the third-person perspective scored significantly higher on the dismissing subscale than mothers adopting the first-person perspective.The pupil sizes of infants of mothers adopting a first-person perspective were relatively larger when they were viewing the unresponsive caregiving display compared to the responsive caregiving display.The second study aimed to explore if mothers’ vantage perspective of attachment-related memories could be a predictor of toddlers(N = 32,17 males,M-age = 36.47 months)attachment style measured by Attachment Q Sort.Mothers’ vantage perspectives of attachment-related memories and mothers’ attachment styles toward their partners were measured through the same structured interview in study 1 and Experience in Close Relationships-Revised,respectively.We also interviewed the mothers about their children’s early nurture environment to see if the mothers were their kids’ primary attachment figure.Results show that the main effect of mothers’ vantage perspectives of attachment-related memories and the interaction effect of mothers’ vantage perspectives of attachment-related memories and if mothers were primary attachment figure on toddlers’ AQS scores are significant.Specifically,toddlers’ attachment scores in the third-person perspective group were significantly lower than toddlers in the first-person perspective group.Mothers adopting the third-person perspective,but not being the primary attachment figure have toddlers scoring significantly lower than those whose mothers are the primary attachment figure.These results suggest that mothers who adopt a third-person perspective to recall the majority of their attachment-related memories might tend to have avoidant attachment relationships with their children.Prenatal support as prevention might be necessary for the expectant women who recall their attachment-related memories mainly from the third-person perspective.