Four decades of research demonstrates that infant-caregiver attachment has important implications for subsequent socio-emotional functioning, with attachment security predictive of a wide range of positive outcomes, and attachment insecurity—and the insecure-disorganized pattern in particular—predictive of later difficulties. This early risk can be ameliorated with early prevention, yet effective prevention depends on a more thorough understanding of the etiology of attachment disorganization. Because measures of caregiver behaviors shown to predict infant-caregiver attachment yield modest to moderate effect sizes, some researchers have suggested the field refocus on understanding the caregiver cognitive processes that underlie infant-caregiver attachment. In an effort to better understand these cognitive mechanisms underlying the development of infant-caregiver attachment disorganization, a previous study by the current author found that compared to women who go on to have a secure attachment relationship with their infant, those who go on to have a disorganized attachment relationship identified more infant faces as expressing anger and fewer as expressing sadness. The current study aimed to expand on this research linking specific patterns of caregiver recognition of negative infant affect with subsequent caregiver-infant attachment outcomes. More specifically, I expected the above findings would generalize to a postnatal (non-exclusively primiparous) sample. I also tested whether these hypothesized effects were unique or overlapping with two existing predictors of attachment—i.e. the Caregiving Helplessness Questionnaire (George and Solomon, 2011) and Adult Attachment Interview (George, Kaplan, & Main, 1985). Counter to hypotheses, I did not find that maternal recognition of infant anger or sadness predicted infant-mother attachment. I did, however, find that maternal helplessness predicted attachment categorization, and that compared to the mothers who went on to have secure attachment relationships with their infants, those who went on to have disorganized attachment relationships labeled more ambiguous infant faces as surprised. The other two facets of caregiver helplessness (caregiver and child fright and child caregiving) and overall unresolved State of Mind scores did not significantly predict infant-caregiver attachment outcomes, nor did adding these predictors to a model including emotion recognition predictors change the pattern of results. Limitations that may explain these null results and future directions are discussed.

abstract: Attachment relationships serve a variety of important functions for infants and adults. Despite the importance of attachment relationships in adults, the mechanisms that underlie the formation or maintenance of these kinds of relationships outside of romantic relationships remains chronically understudied. The current research investigated whether the mechanism of synchrony, which is associated with attachment formation in the parent-infant literature, may still be tied to attachment in adults. To measure this association, these studies showed participants videos to prime synchrony, and then measured activation of attachment concepts in a word completion task. The results of Experiment 1 showed that attachment style moderated the effects of the video prime such that those who were securely attached showed activation of attachment concepts while watching the Synchrony video. Those with a preoccupied attachment style showed activation of attachment concepts when they viewed the Asynchrony video. Those with a dismissive attachment style showed an unhypothesized activation of social distance concepts when viewing the Synchrony video. Experiment 2 suggested an overall effect of the Synchrony video on activation of attachment concepts. However, there was no effect of attachment style on these results. Limits of these studies and future directions are discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Psychology 2015

abstract: Many of the scholars that have chronicled the creation of the modern American kitchen have written about how the technological, societal, and cultural revolutions of the twentieth century played a role in dramatically changing its structure and design. More recently, some scholarly research has focused on the evolution of the kitchen and its meaning over time. In several of these research publications scholars profess that the modern American kitchen, more than any other room, has come to symbolize the center or heart of the home, and the warmest room in the house. However, they are quick to acknowledge that, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the kitchen was not so fondly regarded. Little research exists regarding why individuals increasingly became attached to the kitchen or how that attachment influenced the layout, size, objects, and activities conducted in the kitchen. This thesis fills this void by exploring the implications of place attachment on the evolution of the American kitchen from 1901 through 1964. By approaching this research from a combination of design history and environmental psychology, this thesis provides a new perspective to our understanding of the evolution of kitchen design. Using this two-pronged approach, this study contributes to our understanding of the evolution of the kitchen. This study traces the evolution of the modern American kitchen using two qualitative methodologies: material culture and phenomenology. Drawing from a variety of floor plans, advertisements, and articles contained in the House Beautiful magazine 1901 through 1964, as well as writings from popular domestic advisors of the period, this thesis charts the transformation of the modern American kitchen from a "hell on earth" into the "heart and soul of the home." By combining place attachment theory and kitchen design research this thesis provides interior designers new insight into designing kitchens that foster endearing emotional attachment for our clients. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S.D. Design 2013

Although there has been an abundance of research on attachment, few studies have researched the treatment of attachment difficulties or have used qualitative methods. This study explores how older adoptive/foster children with attachment difficulties form attachments with their adoptive/foster parents. The method of inquiry is fictional stories. I show how children in the context of new relationships with healthy attachment figures who do not abandon or hurt them, modify their inferred internal constructions of attachment figures. This study has four parts: In the first part, I introduce the subject of attachment and the research method of fiction. In the second part, I discuss how I came to choose fiction as the method of inquiry. I explore the matter of the ethics of doing research with children, including the difficulty of gaining informed consent and the inherent dangers of a dual relationship of counsellor-researcher. I deconstruct the authority of the Human Research Ethics Committee and explore the relationship of fiction to truth in terms of the assumptions that there is no one true set of facts, but rather multiple constructed realities or “fictions”. In part 3, I present 5 fictional stories, featuring composites of various children with attachment difficulties I have worked with as a psychotherapist. They are all children who have been able to overcome many internal barriers to attach to their parents. There is a first person account of an 11 year old adoptive child who spent his infancy in a Romanian orphanage; a radio play of a 5 year old black child who spent part of his infancy in an orphanage in Haiti; a didactic-descriptive account of a foster parent as attachment figure with 4 hard-to-reach youth; a short story of a 15 year old adopted teenager who rejects her adoptive parents and later, returns to them; and a fairy tale depicting a lonely, distancing 8 year old girl who connected with her rejecting mother. Interspersed throughout these stories are my own poetry and prose that offer other perspectives on the topic of attachment. Part 4 is the discussion and interpretation of the underlying issues raised by the text, presented in the multivocal style of a T.V. show. Topics include the adoptive/foster child's torturous ambivalence toward the attachment figure/parent; a period of rejection of the parent; the child's fear and pain associated with his/her own unfulfilled longing; and the child's re-enactment of the trauma. The implications for Child Welfare practice, training of child care workers and counsellors are discussed. The relevancy of these children's inner conflicts regarding attachment to our own struggles with love individually and as a society is mentioned. / Graduate

The number of children who are placed in foster care with their grandmothers has increased drastically. The main reason for their foster care placement is the death of their mother or both their parents, mostly because of HIV/Aids-related diseases. However, welfare organisations in South Africa do not have a programme at their disposal to strengthen attachment between related single-parent foster mothers and their foster children. An exploratory study was therefore undertaken to develop such a programme. A twofold research approach, namely a positivist-humanistic or quantitative-qualitative approach, was followed to collect the data. The approach would serve the exploratory developmental research the best. The aim of the study was to develop an attachment programme for related, single-parent foster mothers and foster children, and implement and empirically test the programme. A quasi-experimental design, namely a comparative group pretest-posttest, was used to test the programme empirically. A collective case study was also used to observe and describe the respondents’ subjective experiences of the programme. The study was guided by the following research question: What are the experiences of a group of related single-parent foster mothers and foster children during the implementation of the attachment programme? This question was based on the following hypothesis: If the programme is applied, the attachment of the related single-parent foster mothers and foster children will improve. The research question was answered and the hypothesis was confirmed. Altogether 50 mother-child pairs (middle-childhood children and grandmothers older than 50 years) who lived in Daveyton (Gauteng) and were clients of CMR Daveyton during 2004, participated in the research. The sample was divided into two equally large groups: a comparative group and an experimental group. The experimental group was supposed to have done a pretest, the programme and a posttest, but since several respondents withdrew from the research, only 22% (11 mother-child pairs) were subjected to the intervention. The comparative group did the pretest and the posttest only. Rothman and Thomas’s model for intervention research was used to develop the attachment programme. The model is comprised out of six phases of which the first five phases have been used in this study. During the first phase the problem was analysed. During the second phase information (about attachment and foster care) was collected. During the third and fourth phases a theory-based attachment programme was drafted and tested to identify shortcomings. In the fifth phase the programme was fully implemented and its impact tested empirically. The quantitative data were collected with the aid of an existing attachment scale, the Marschak Interaction Method Behavior Rating System (MIMBRS). The MIMBRS was used to code the respondents’ interactions during a structured interactional analysis (the Marschak Interactional Method or MIM). Since the MIM is mainly used among literate people, it was adapted for the purposes of this study for illiterate people. The results of the pretest and posttest demonstrated that the intervention was successful. The respondents who did the programme showed an improvement in all the variables that were measured. Copyright 2005, University of Pretoria. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of Pretoria. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the University of Pretoria. Please cite as follows: Blunden, C 2005, ’n Bindingsprogram vir verwante, enkelouerpleegmoeders en pleegkinders (Afrikaans), DPhil thesis, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, viewed yymmdd < http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-09142005-122907 / > / Thesis (DPhil (Social Work))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Social Work and Criminology / unrestricted

There is a void of existing measures assessing young adults’ perceptions of childhood disorganized and controlling attachment. The current research project aimed to fill this gap by developing a convenient self-report measure, the Childhood Disorganization and Role Reversal Scale (CDRR: Meier & Bureau, 2012), which comprehensively assesses for the complexity of those attachment constructs in young adults. The CDRR is a novel measure as it assesses the unique attachment representations of mother-child and father-child relationships. This research project had three main objectives. The first objective was the development of the CDRR. It was guided by the recommendations of various scholars in scale development using classical measurement theory. The items of the CDRR were informed by the attachment and family systems literature. The factor structure of the CDRR was determined through conducting principal components analyses (PCA). The second objective, constituting Study 1, aimed to assess the psychometric properties of the CDRR, namely, its structural stability, internal reliability, temporal reliability, convergent and discriminant validity and criterion-related validity. Lastly, the third objective, involving Study 2, sought to provide further support for the validity of the CDRR. It accomplished this goal by exploring the associations of the CDRR to psychological outcomes consistent with the attachment literature, namely, problems in the separation-individuation process, unresolved feelings towards caregiver, and current psychological well-being. The results of the PCA revealed a four-factor structure for both CDRR parent versions. The CDRR mother version includes the Disorganization/Punitive, Mutual Hostility, Affective Caregiving, and Appropriate Boundaries scales, while the CDRR father version includes the Disorganization, Affective Caregiving, Appropriate Boundaries, and Punitive scales. Overall, support was provided for the psychometric properties of the CDRR. The CDRR scales demonstrated adequate structural stability, internal consistency, temporal reliability and various forms of validity. Generally, the disorganized and controlling scales were positively related to problematic separation-individuation, unresolved feelings towards caregivers and psychological problems. It is hoped the CDRR will assist researchers in broadening the understanding of psychological outcomes of disorganized and controlling attachment representations in young adulthood.

Abstract In this essay we investigate how attachment between the children and the educators is experienced in preschool. We look at attachment in as a phenomena and use a phenomenological theoretical perspective. Our own experience of many years of working in preschools in Sweden is that there seems to be an unequal perception on the importance of attachment. The purpose of our study is to investigate the picture of how the interviewed educators say that they experience attachment, as a phenomena, in preschool. 15 educators in preschool were interviewed with a qualitative method and analysed with a content analysis. The result shows that all the interviewed educators see attachment as something important. They seem to equate the phenomena with security. They experience attachment differently depending on their own earlier experiences, views on children and their understanding and knowledge. We can see that there is a gap of knowledge, among educators, when it comes to how to understand the children's attachment behaviour which can be a great loss for the children who don't have a safe attachment pattern.

Reactive attachment disorder (RAD), a disorder marked by a severe disruption in developmental attachment, is most often diagnosed in youth who have received substandard or negligent care from their primary caregiver. Such youth have increased risk of behavioral and emotional issues as well as future relationship problems; they generally do not respond to traditional evidence-based practices of therapy. The present study examined the use of the biofield energy practice of Healing Touch (HT) as a viable therapeutic option for improved quality of life for youth diagnosed with RAD. A quantitative, quasi-experimental research study using secondary data was conducted. Eligible participants were 40 children between the ages of 6and 21 residing at a residential facility and having the diagnosis of RAD. Half of the participants received HT therapy while the other half did not. Dependent variables of frequencies of seclusion, aggression, self-injury/self-harm, property damage in excess of $50, and running away from the facility were assessed at set intervals before and after implementation of HT therapy. Findings from a 2 x 2 mixed factorial design using mixed ANOVAs lacked statistical significance; therefore, the alternative hypotheses were not supported. However, the potential remains for positive social change. Clinical importance was evidenced in several variables demonstrating improvement in behaviors for many participants. In addition, while statistical significance was not obtained, the study contributes to the knowledge base regarding the use of HT therapy for future studies.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate attachment of people to their pets as compared to their human relationships. Specifically, this research was meant to discover if pet attachment was a more secure attachment than human-human attachment. One hundred and ninety-four students from an Introductory Psychology class at the University of Central Florida completed a survey regarding pet and human attachment. The results are discussed.

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