Attachment and Memory : Does Attachment Experience Influence Eyewitness Testimony?

In an effort to examine the relationship between internal working models of attachment (Bowlby, 1969) and eyewitness testimony for child abuse (Lindberg, Kieffer, & Thomas, 2000), college students first watched a video of a mother hitting her son on the head and knocking him to the floor. After this, they filled out the Attachment and Personality Dynamics Questionnaire (APDQ) (Lindberg & Thomas, 1998). Finally, they were tested about details in the video, their memories for inferences about the characters, and their memories for the gist. They were also given several questions about their personal experiences with the type of discipline depicted in the film as well as their attitudes on parenting. The results showed that there is a relationship between experience with abuse and attachment, recall of emotions felt by the mother and the boy and attachment, and endorsement of phys ical punishment and attachment. Attachment 1 Attachment and Memory: Does Attachment Experience Influence Eyewitness Testimony? The purpose of the present experiment was to examine interrelationships between two major areas of research: eyewitness testimony and attachment theory. Traditionally, eyewitness testimony has focused on how suggestions can affect how much individuals recall about witnessed actions. Attachment theory, on the other hand, has emphasized the types of relationships we develop, our models of self and others, and how differences in attachment security enter into clinical symptoms and behaviors. What has been neglected is how these two areas might intersect. Specifically, when do internal working models of attachment enter into one’s eyewitness testimony? How do personal experiences with abuse along with internal models of attachment relationships enter into one’s memory for abusive encounters? Finally, how do personally experienced instances of abuse with one’s own mother affect later internal models of attachment, and how do these intersect to form attitudes about physical punishment? Because the dominant theories of attachment pose such relationships, and because this is an area that has been relatively neglected, this study attempted to provide initial answers to these questions. According to the Lindberg, Kieffer, and Thomas’ (2000) model, there are three intersecting classes of variables that one must consider in making predictions about eyewitness testimony. These are memory processes, participant characteristics, and focus of study. Memory processes refer to processes at encoding (suggestions or perceptual sets offered to witnesses before they encode the event to be remembered, storage (manipulations occurring after exposure to the event), and retrieval (manipulations occurring at the time when the witness is asked to remember the event). Participant characteristic refer to the effects of developmental level, personal experience with the event in question, arousal level, etc. that could have a bearing on what and how much was remembered. Focus of study was said to refer to the class of dependent Attachment 2 variables that one is focusing on, such as memories for details versus memories for inferences and the gist, suggesting that the results of a memory experiment can be determined by how the memory is tested. The most neglected aspect of this taxonomy has been how personal experience variables and other internal working models of participants enter into eyewitness testimonies. In order to understand how eyewitness testimony might be related to Bowlby’s (1969) theory of attachment, and measures of attachment and related personality dynamics (Lindberg & Thomas, 1998), it is first necessary to discuss some theoretical implications of attachment theory. Bowlby (1969) suggested that early attachment relationships influence later development through the formation of internal working models. According to his theory, experiences of sensitive or insensitive care giving in childhood lead individuals to develop beliefs about themselves and what to expect from others. These beliefs were thought to form the basis of an internal working model of self and others. Bowlby (1969) suggested that working models act as “largely unconscious interpretive filters through which relationships and other social experiences, as well as self-understanding, are constructed” (as cited in Thompson, 1999, p. 267). A recent study conducted by Quas, Goodman, Bidrose, Pipe, Craw, and Albin (1999) supported Bowlby’s emphasis on internal working models as filters for the retention of experiences. In this study, Quas et al (1999) predicted that when children went through the stressful medical procedure of a Voiding Cystourethrogram Fluoroscopy (VCUG), children of secure parents, as measured by an adult relationship questionnaire, would more readily discuss it and report greater comfort. The results of this study supported the prediction that children who had secure attachment were less fearful and upset during and after VCUG. Furthermore, Attachment 3 children with fearful avoidant parents were more upset before the VCUG and were more likely to omit information about it when asked to recall. On the other hand, children with dismissing avoidant parents showed higher suggestibility and were more likely to give inaccurate, or contradictory, recalls. Secure attachment histories have also been found to predict the kind of things children will recall. In a study by Belsky, Spritz, and Crnic (1996) children with a secure attachment remembered positive events in a puppet show more accurately than negative events. Although these findings conform to Bowlby’s (1969) suggestions that our internal working models filter what we perceive and influence the motives we attribute to others, little research has been done on how one’s own experiences with physical abuse as a disciplinary method and internal working models of attachment affect how and what we remember about physical abuse and punishment of children. In the present paradigm, participants were shown a video that was used in the earlier Lindberg et al. (2000) study. In the video, among other things, a mother appeared to hit her son and knock him to the floor after repeatedly asking him to help her and being ignored. Afterward, participants were given the Attachment and Personality Dynamics Questionnaire (APDQ) (Lindberg & Thomas, 1998). The APDQ was designed to measure attachment relationships and other aspects of personality. It has been compared with other instruments that measure attachment and it has been found to be psychometrically superior. It has been used to analyze populations of prisoners, eating disordered patients, and alcoholics. Participants were then tested for their memory of the film, their impressions about what motives were held by the figures in the film, and then they were asked questions about their beliefs about parental discipline. Attachment 4 First, in line with the literature on intergenerational transmission of abusive parenting (Klimes-Dougan & Kistner ) we expect that there should be a strong relation between the scales of the APDQ (Lindberg &Thomas, 1998) and the participants’ experience with similar types of abuse. Furthermore, insecure attachments should also be correlated with the number of times participants were reportedly hit like this. If Bowlby (1969) and Ainsworth (1978) were correct about this hypothesis of internal working models, then one’s scores on the APDQ (Lindberg & Thomas, 1998) should not only predict memory performance in the above predicted behaviors, they should also predict important dimensions of parenting behavior as well. There should also be a strong relation between the scales of measures of adult attachment (Lindberg & Thomas, 1998), and the participants’ recall of inferences about maternal emotions and the emotions of the boy. Securely attached participant should report stress-related emotions (i.e. helpless) about the mother because the capacity for empathy has been consistently linked to secure attachment (Weinfield, Sroufe, Egeland, and Carslon, 1999). Reports of sad feelings about the boy (i.e. feeling hurt) should predict low abusiveness since higher empathy is correlated with lower abusiveness (Weinfeld, et al., 1999). Thus, insecurely attached participants should be more likely to report that they would be angrier if they were the mother in the film and score high on the abusiveness scale. Finally, according to the Lindberg et al (2000) model, one must pay special attention to interactions between memory processes, participant characteristic s, and focus of study. For example, Lindberg et al. (2000) stated that although there will be interactions between personal characteristics and memories for gist, such interactions would not be present for memories for details. This would, therefore, predict that there should be no relation between the personal Attachment 5 characteristics of attachment or abuse history and amount of details recalled, suggestibility on memories for the details, or participant certainty about details. In summary, several predictions can be offered by combining attachment models and the Lindberg et.al’s (2000) model of the development of eyewitness testimony. First, there should be a relationship between participants’ experience with abuse and the attachment and related scales of the APDQ. Second, there should be a relation between attachment and important dimensions of parenting such as beliefs in spanking and severity of punishment. Third, there should be correlations between recall of emotions felt by the mother and the boy and the scales of the APDQ. Finally, there should be no relationship between personal characteristics and memories for details. Method