Background: There is a high prevalence of challenging behaviors (CB) in adults with intellectual disability (ID), which lead to negative personal outcomes and diminished quality of life. Emerging evidence suggest attachment theory could be useful to address CB in adults with ID and lower the negative impact on their social environment. Methods: A…

Allan N. Schore has served on the clinical faculty of the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine since 1996 and has maintained a private clinical practice for more than four decades. He has contributed significant research to the disciplines of interpersonal neurobiology, affective…

Terror management theory (TMT) highlights the motivational impact of thoughts of death in various aspects of everyday life. Since its inception in 1986, research on TMT has undergone a slight but significant shift from an almost exclusive focus on the manipulation of thoughts of death to a marked increase in studies that measure the accessibility…

Relations between infant-mother attachment security at 15 months and infants' (N = 206) joint attention behaviors (a) with an experimenter at 8 and 15 months, and (b) with their mothers at 15 months were investigated. No concurrent or longitudinal relations were observed between attachment security and infants' tendency to respond to an…

This study compared early parenting practices and adolescent behavior to determine whether parental attachment-promoting behaviors in the first year of life were associated with psychosocial adjustment in teenagers. The mothers of 22 adolescents completed a behavioral assessment of their teenager and an inventory of their recollected parenting…

Previous work has shown that students who have troublesome relationships with their parents show higher risk factors for poorer college adjustment. In the present study, we focused on the balance between two key aspects of parenting style, parental care and overprotection, as they affect the transition to college life. Eighty-three undergraduate…

When the Commission on Children At Risk--a group of 33 children's doctors, research scientists, mental health and youth service professionals--presented to the Nation its report on the crises of deteriorating mental and behavioral health of children in the US, the 83-page report was entitled "Hardwired to Connect: The New Scientific Case for…

The role of attachment style in relation to forgiveness was investigated in 2 betrayal interviews. Blood pressure and heart rate were assessed, along with attachment style, forgiveness, empathy, and emotional expressiveness. Securely attached individuals were more forgiving of the specific offense, had higher levels of trait forgiveness, and…

Twenty-eight 10-month-old infants were observed by two independent teams, one measuring activity in the home situation and one measuring attachment behaviors in a videotaped standard laboratory sequence. (MS)

Used standardized mood-induction procedures to examine the relation between attachment security and representational-defensive processes. Subjects were 32 preschoolers ranked most secure and least secure using Attachment Q-Set. Found secure subjects were no more responsive to positive mood inductions, and no less responsive to negative ones, than…

Notes how preceding articles expand the repertoire of theory-relevant assessments of attachment, with a special emphasis on Ainsworth's concept of the secure base. Focuses on a number of issues raised by this collection that are particularly promising for theory development, including assessment of secure-base behavior and maternal sensitivity,…

Focuses on three issues raised by findings presented in preceding articles: (1) How do we continue the study and conceptualization of secure-base behavior? (2) How do we take into account the multiple-relationship context of attachment? and (3) How do we expand our conceptualization of attachment to include variations in individual adaptations and…

This study examined father-infant and mother-infant relationships by observing infants and parents in their homes. The subjects were 20 infants, 10 boys and 10 girls, 7 and 8 months of age. Each infant was visited twice when both parents were at home. All visits were made by the same two persons: a male observer, who maintained a narrative account…

Used Adult Attachment Interview to examine relationship between mothers' level of security and children's attachment behavior. Found that except for children of preoccupied mothers, children of mothers classified as secure scored higher on the (Attachment Q-Set) AQS-derived security dimension than children whose mothers were classified as insecure…

Presents Attachment Q-Set (AQS), consisting of 90 individual statements descriptive of the behavior of infants and young children observed during periods of interaction with primary caregivers. Items selected are intended to provide a comprehensive characterization of the secure-base behavior of the child as observed over a period of two to six…