The quality of the maternal communication plays a critical role in the development of secure infant-caregiver attachment. This relationship may be mediated by the caregivers' capacity to recognize and appropriately respond to the child's mental states (i.e., mind-mindedness). To specifically explore the role of mind-mindedness in the relationship…

Research has shown the importance of responsive caregiving for fostering positive development early in life; however, tools measuring these interactions are often impractical for larger scale intervention trials and in settings with resource constraints. The present study provides reliability and validity evidence from Sindh, Pakistan for a tool…

Given the legacy of John Bowlby, Attachment theory has often portrayed separation from a caregiver as likely to provoke protest, despair, and ultimately detachment in infants and young children. Indeed, the emotional challenge of separation is built into a key measurement tool of Attachment theory, the Strange Situation. However, James Robertson,…

Adolescence is characterized by frequent emotional challenges, intense emotions, and higher levels of expressive suppression use than found in older populations. While evidence suggests that contingent expressive suppression use based on context is the most functional, it remains unclear whether adolescents use expressive suppression…

The current study examined the associations that children's attachment and temperament share with individual differences in jealousy behaviors in early childhood. Previous research has found that secure children display fewer jealousy behaviors than their insecure counterparts, while other research has demonstrated that children with greater…

Being securely attached and willing to forgive your partner tends to promote greater relationship success. Though attachment and partner forgiveness are associated cross-sectionally, research has yet to investigate whether and how these positive relationship factors tend to codevelop over time. The current study examined cross-lagged effects and…

The recently developed short form of the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale--Revised Child version (ECR-RC) is a promising tool to assess anxious and avoidant attachment in children and adolescents. Yet, evidence concerning its validity in middle childhood is limited. This study aimed to test the psychometric properties of the 12-item ECR-RC…

Attachment theorists have described the parent-child attachment relationship as a foundation for the emergence and development of children's capacity for emotion regulation and coping with stress. The purpose of this review was to summarize the existing research addressing this issue. We identified 23 studies that employed validated assessments of…

Only a few studies have longitudinally explored to whom emerging adults prefer to turn to seek closeness, comfort, and security (called "attachment preferences"), and previous studies on attachment preferences in emerging adults have focused only on the beginning of romantic relationships but not on the end of relationships. Czech…

Despite the robust link between dispositional optimism and well-being across the lifespan, the developmental origins of dispositional optimism are unknown. Understanding the pathways that lead to greater optimism during the transition from adolescence into young adulthood may be important given that this stage of the life course involves the…

Attachment theory and previous research on emotion regulation (ER) suggest that ER will be associated with adult attachment orientation, with the expectation of different associations of attachment avoidance, anxiety, and security with specific ER patterns. In addition, research has shown that the emotion under consideration and the context may…

Romantic relationship quality in adolescence and early adulthood has often been linked to earlier parent-child relationship quality but it is possible that these links are nonlinear. Moreover, the role of social skills as mediator of associations between parent-child and romantic relations has been discussed but not rigorously tested. Using data…

The main purpose of the study was to examine the moderating role of the insecure mother-child attachment in the relations between social withdraw and peer difficulties. Participants were 487 urban children (247 boys, 240 girls) in elementary schools in Shanghai, the People's Republic of China. Data on attachment-relevant coping styles in insecure…

The first distribution of Chinese infant-mother (n = 61) attachment classifications categorised by trained and reliability-tested coders is reported with statistical comparisons to US norms and previous Chinese distributions. Three-way distribution was 15% insecure-avoidant, 62% secure, 13% insecure-resistant, and 4-way distribution was 13%…

Although it is hypothesized that children with different insecure attachment patterns may experience a variety of peer difficulties, the question has been investigated almost exclusively for externalizing and internalizing behaviors with peers. The purpose of this study was to investigate how each of the insecure attachment patterns is related to…