Attachment and Preschool Children's Understanding of Maternal versus Non-Maternal Psychological States

Autor/inn/en	Repacholi, Betty; Trapolini, Tania
Titel	Attachment and Preschool Children's Understanding of Maternal versus Non-Maternal Psychological States
Quelle	In: British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 22 (2004) 3, S.395-415 (21 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0261-510X
DOI	10.1348/0261510041552693
Schlagwörter	Social Development; Preschool Children; Attachment Behavior; Verbal Ability; Security (Psychology); Separation Anxiety; Cognitive Development; Prediction; Social Cognition; Mothers; Psychological Patterns; Beliefs; Measures (Individuals); Scores; Task Analysis; Parent Child Relationship + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Soziale Entwicklung; Pre-school age; Preschool age; Child; Children; Pre-school education; Preschool education; Vorschulalter; Kind; Kinder; Vorschulkind; Vorschulkinder; Vorschulerziehung; Vorschule; Attachment; Bindungsverhalten; Mündliche Leistung; Security; Psychology; Sicherheit; Trennungsangst; Kognitive Entwicklung; Vorhersage; Soziale Kognition; Mother; Mutter; Belief; Glaube; Messdaten; Aufgabenanalyse; Parents-child relationship; Parent-child-relation; Parent-child relationship; Eltern-Kind-Beziehung
Abstract	There is growing evidence that insecurely attached children are less advanced in their social understanding than their secure counterparts. However, attachment may also predict how individual children use their social understanding across different relationships. For instance, the insecure child's social-cognitive difficulties may be more pronounced when the psychological states of an attachment figure are being considered. In the current study, forty-eight 4- to 5-year-old children were asked about their mothers' emotions and false beliefs, as well as those of non-attachment figures. The Separation Anxiety Test (SAT) was administered to assess children's attachment representations. Children's SAT scores predicted their overall performance on the false belief and causes of emotion tasks, even after controlling for age and verbal ability. More interestingly, however, children with high scores on the Avoidance dimension of the SAT experienced greater difficulty understanding maternal false beliefs relative to those of an unfamiliar adult female. Thus, although attachment insecurity may hinder social-cognitive development in general, the findings suggest that there are more specific effects as well. Attachment representations that are characterized by high levels of avoidance appear to interfere with children's ability to fully engage their social-cognitive skills when reasoning about maternal mental states. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10