Attachment states of mind among internationally adoptive and foster parents

Abstract

The first aim of the current study was to examine the latent structure of attachment states of mind as assessed by the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) among three groups of parents of children at risk for insecure attachments: parents who adopted internationally (N = 147), foster parents (N = 300), and parents living in poverty and involved with Child Protective Services (CPS; N = 284). Confirmatory factor analysis indicated the state of mind rating scales loaded on two factors reflecting adults’ preoccupied and dismissing states of mind. Taxometric analyses indicated the variation in adults’ preoccupied states of mind was more consistent with a dimensional than a categorical model, whereas results for dismissing states of mind were indeterminate. The second aim was to examine the degree to which the attachment states of mind of internationally adoptive and foster parents differ from those of poverty/CPS-referred parents and low-risk parents. After controlling for parental age, sex, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status, (a) internationally adoptive parents had lower scores on the dismissing dimension than the sample of community parents described by Haltigan, Leerkes, Supple, and Calkins (2014); (b) foster parents did not differ from community parents on either the dismissing or the preoccupied AAI dimension; and (c) both internationally adoptive and foster parents had lower scores on the preoccupied dimension than poverty/CPS-referred parents. Analyses using the traditional AAI categories provided convergent evidence that (a) internationally adoptive parents were more likely to be classified as having an autonomous state of mind than low-risk North American mothers based on Bakermans-Kranenburg and van IJzendoorn’s (2009) meta-analytic estimates, (b) the rates of autonomous states of mind did not differ between foster and low-risk parents, and (c) both internationally adoptive and foster parents were less likely to be classified as having a preoccupied state of mind than poverty/CPS-referred parents.

Attachment state of mind and childhood experiences of maltreatment as predictors of sensitive care from infancy through middle childhood: Results from a longitudinal study of parents involved with Child Protective Services

“…The prevalence of autonomous states of mind is lower and the prevalence of dismissing and unresolved states of mind is higher among parents from higher risk backgrounds than lower risk backgrounds (Bakermans-Kranenburg & van IJzendoorn, 2009). In a previous publication using the sample featured in this paper (Raby, Yarger, et al, 2017), we reported that the distribution of adult attachment states of mind in our Child Protective Services-referred sample of parents living in poverty had lower rates of autonomous states of mind (30%), higher rates of dismissing states of mind (34%), and higher rates of unresolved states of mind (31%) than nonclinical samples. This distribution is highly consistent with the meta-analytic distribution for other high-risk samples (Bakermans-Kranenburg & van IJzendoorn, 2009).…”

Attachment to Parents and Aggressiveness in Adopted Adolescents: A Multi‐Sample Comparison Study

“…For instance, whereas attachment deficits are more prevalent in children adopted after their first year compared to nonadopted ones, differences between adopted and nonadopted individuals seem to disappear in adulthood (van den Dries, Juffer, van IJzendoorn, & Bakermans‐Kranenburg, ). It is possible that attachment difficulties found in adopted children undergo an improvement during adolescence as a result of the healing influence of the particularly optimal rearing context enabled by the inherent strengths of the adoptive parents in comparison to nonadoptive parents: higher education and socioeconomic status (Hamilton, Cheng, & Powell, ), better parenting styles or discipline strategies (O'Brien & Zamostny, ), and more security regarding attachment (Raby et al., ). However, the available evidence in the case of adopted adolescents is too limited to draw conclusions.…”

Attachment in the context of atypical caregiving

“…Nonetheless, in the course of coediting the excellent papers in this Special Issue, several themes emerged repeatedly, which we believe merit some attention at the outset. As elaborated on below, these themes included the following: the value of studies of attachment in the context of atypical caregiving for producing methodological insights (e.g., Bailey, Tarabulsy, Moran, Pederson, & Bento, 2017; Kobak et al, 2017; Martin, Bureau, et al, 2017; Martin, Sturge-Apple, Davies, Romero, & Buckholz, 2017; Poehlmann-Tynan et al, 2017; Raby, Labella, et al, 2017; Raby, Yarger, et al, 2017); the continued search for biological mechanisms capable of explaining the origins and potentially enduring consequences of variation in early attachment experiences (Blaze & Roth, 2017; Fearon et al, 2017; Mulder et al, 2017; Quevedo et al, 2017; Thijssen et al, 2017); and the notable diversity of current attachment-related intervention efforts (Cassidy et al, 2017; Dubois-Comtois et al, 2017; Guild, Toth, Handley, Rogosch, & Cicchetti, 2017; Handley, Michl-Petzing, Rogosch, Cicchetti, & Toth, 2017; Humphreys, Nelson, Fox, & Zeanah, 2017; Schact et al, 2017; Suchman et al, 2017; Swain et al, 2017; Tereno et al, 2017). …”