Attachment the Italian Way

Abstract

In the present meta-analysis 627 Strange Situation Procedures (SSP; Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978 ) from 17 Italian infant attachment studies and 2,258 Adult Attachment Interviews (AAI; Main, Kaplan, & Cassidy, 1985 ) from 50 Italian adult attachment studies were included. All studies were published between 1990 and 2009. Our aim was to test the universality hypothesis of attachment theory in this Italian database. Results indicated that the majority of nonclinical Italian infants were classified as securely attached (53%); similarly, the majority of nonclinical Italian adults were secure (60%). Although cross-cultural similarities provide evidence for the universality hypothesis of attachment theory, our meta-analysis revealed also interesting cultural specificities. First, nonclinical Italian infants’ distribution showed an overrepresentation of avoidant attachments compared to the normative distribution. Second, the underrepresentation of unresolved loss among Italian nonclinical adults was noteworthy.

The role of both parents’ attachment pattern in understanding childhood obesity

“…To compare mothers’ and fathers’ attachment patterns with a normative Italian sample, a Chi-square analysis was conducted using data from a meta-analysis (Cassibba et al, 2013). Findings revealed a significant different distribution for mothers (χ 2 = 24.49, df = 9, p = 0.004) for the four-way pattern classification.…”

“…The comparison of these patterns of parental attachment with the data available for both Italian normative samples and clinical/at risk samples (Cassibba et al, 2013) indicated that for the four-way classification, the mothers in the sample were more likely to exhibit the preoccupied and unresolved patterns compared to the non-clinical mothers. Moreover, this distribution was similar to the distribution of the clinical/at risk Italian normative sample, suggesting that mothers of overweight/obese children were more similar to mothers in the normative risk group than to mothers in the non-clinical normative sample.…”

“…In this sample of parents of overweight/obese children, attachment security was not the main feature neither for mothers nor for fathers. In the distribution of attachment of the Italian non-clinical mothers, the security emerges as the main feature (Cassibba et al, 2013). …”

Kulturelle Unterschiede bezüglich der depressiven Störung und Bindungsorientierung

“…Die Betrachtung des kulturellen Hintergrundes in Zusammenhang mit individualistischen und kollektivistischen [23,24] Familien-und Beziehungsstrukturen [9,10,12] erscheint für die Diskussion der Ergebnisse essenziell. So versuchen die Türken im Herkunftsland aufgrund ihrer der Gesellschaft den Vorrang einräumenden Mentalität [26] genau dieser und deren Vorstellungen -auch was Beziehungen anbelangt -gerecht zu werden, um sich der gesellschaftlichen Akzeptanz sicher sein zu können.…”

“…Neben dem Vorhandensein einer sogenannten zentralen Bindungsperson [4] können jedoch auch Determinanten wie beispielsweise die Feinfühligkeit der Mutter [5], das kindliche Temperament [6] sowie sozio-ökonomische Faktoren [7,8] die Bindungsqualität beeinflussen. Auch ist es von Bedeutung, von welcher Kultur die Interaktion zwischen Bindungsperson und Kind geprägt wird [9], da diese Auswirkungen auf die Familiensysteme und somit auf den Erziehungsstil hat [10][11][12]. Auf diesen Erkenntnissen basierend konnten drei unterschiedliche Verhaltensmuster und daraus resultierend Bindungsstile identifiziert werden [13]: die sichere, die unsicher-vermeidende und die unsicher-ambivalente Bindung.…”