This study aims to investigate the association between the mental state talk of mothers and their preadolescent children, with the hypothesis that an intergenerational transmission of mentalizing abilities may extend beyond early childhood. The participants were 41 mother-preadolescent child nonclinical dyads. The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI)…

This paper reports on the longitudinal links between first-time mothers (N = 48) Adult Attachment Interviews (AAIs), provided during pregnancy, and their first-born children's AAIs, provided at age 16 years. The AAIs from the adolescents were scored for reflective functioning (RF), and this was found to be significantly linked to whether their…

In this commentary, Spangler evaluates the Steele, Perez, Segal, and Steele report that arguede that reflective functioning in adolescence could not be predicted by quality of early infant attachment, but was associated with maternal (but not paternal) attachment representation, assessed before the adolescents' birth. Assuming that parental…

In this commentary, Soares and Baptista state that the Steele, Perez, Segal, and Steele (2016) article contributed with an informative study that adolescents' reflective functioning (RF) is predicted by maternal attachment representation, which was assessed even before the youth were born by using the Adult Attachment Interview. The authors assert…

Epistemological development and attachment theory have been independent frameworks for understanding psychological development. This study examined the association between epistemological development (using the Measure of Epistemological Reflection) and attachment (using the Adult Attachment Interview) in a sample of 60 pre- and postgraduated…

The goals of this article were to examine (1) the relative and absolute stability of maternal autonomy support between infancy and preschool age, and (2) the moderating role of child gender, maternal attachment state of mind, and stressful life events. Sixty-nine mother-child dyads participated in five visits when the child was 8, 15, and 18…

The aim of this report was to investigate the associations between attachment state of mind, romantic attachment style, and indices of maternal functioning in two relational spheres: the mother-child relationship (i.e., maternal sensitivity and child attachment security) and the marital relationship (i.e., mothers' and their partners' marital…

The validity of the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), and its relation to toddlers' social and emotional adaptation, were investigated. The AAI and the Parental Bonding Instrument were related, but only the AAI yielded classifications that corresponded to the quality of infant-parent attachment. (Author/LB)

This study investigates whether attachment quality at ages 1, 6 and 16 is related to autonomy and relatedness behavior in adolescence. In a follow-up of the Regensburg Longitudinal Study, forty-three 16-year-old adolescents and their mothers were assessed in a revealed differences task and a planning a vacation task. Attachment was assessed during…

Work in developmental psychiatry and psychology has increasingly focused on how internal representations of early experiences with primary figures of childhood affect relationship formation in later childhood and adulthood. Investigations of the reflective self function, which involves mental states in which individuals become the subject of their…