Attachment security and friendship quality in early childhood
Subtitle: a theoretical and methodological reconceptualization.
Published: 2004
Language: eng
Number of pages: 142
Subjects: Attachment behavior in children.; Friendship in children.; Security (Psychology) in children.
Description: It is widely accepted that children's attachment security influences the quality of their later relationships with peers. Meta-analytic data, however, suggest that only a small to moderate portion of the variance in peer relations is accounted for by attachment security. Furthermore, little is known about the processes that mediate this relation. The present study addressed these two issues through the development and assessment of a new model of the attachment security-peer relations link which (1) addressed methodological limitations pertaining to the loose application of key tenets of attachment theory and limited measurement of friendship quality and (2) examined the mediating role of social understanding in the relation. A community sample of 5-year-old friend pairs (N = 60) served as participants. Both members of the dyad completed measures of social understanding and were observed playing in a free play and a stress condition. Friendship quality was assessed using behavioural and narrative measures. Mothers of both children completed a measure of child attachment security. While attachment security was significantly related to some aspects of friendship quality, a consistent pattern of association was not found. Inconsistencies were present at the level of the child (target child or friend), observational context (free play or stress condition), and friendship quality measure. Similar inconsistencies were noted in the relation between social understanding and friendship quality. Attachment security was not significantly related to children's performance on social understanding measures. The weak and inconsistent results found in the present study mirror those of previous research and are discussed in terms of shared problems with construct validity at within- and between-construct levels, highlighting the need for theoretical specificity. Future directions for research in the area of friendship quality are presented, with a call to researchers to move beyond simple linear models. The ideas discussed have ramifications for the design of research studies in the areas of attachment security, social understanding, and friendship quality, as well as implications for research design in developmental psychology in general.
Notes: Adviser: Leslie Atkinson.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2004.

Electronic version licensed for access by U. of T. users.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 65-10, Section: B, page: 5437.