The Distribution of Attachment Types and Their Characteristics in Middle Childhood Boys

Abstract

Sex differences in attachment are absent during infancy and early childhood, emerge in middle childhood with self-reports and doll-play tasks, and persist into adulthood, when they are most reliably detected in romantic attachment styles. In our previous work, we hypothesized that sex differences in attachment develop under the influence of adrenal androgens during the transition form early to middle childhood, following activation of hormone-sensitive neural pathways organized by prenatal and early postnatal exposure to sex hormones. In this study we tested the association between the right-hand 2D:4D digit ratio (a marker of early exposure to androgens and estrogen) and sexually differentiated dimensions of attachment in middle childhood assessed with the Coping Strategies Questionnaire (CSQ). In a sample of 285 Italian children aged 8-10 years, females scored lower in avoidance and higher in preoccupation, while no significant sex differences were observed in felt security. Consistent with our predictions, higher (feminized) digit ratios were significantly associated with lower avoidance and higher preoccupation scores in both males and females. In contrast, there was no significant association between digit ratio and felt security in either sex. These results corroborate the hypothesis that sex differences in attachment reflect the activation of sexually differentiated pathways organized in early development, and for the first time implicate sex hormones in the development of individual differences in attachment styles.

Sex differences in attachment styles

“…The picture changes dramatically in middle childhood (about 6-11 years). Research has documented robust differences mirroring those observed in adulthood, with boys higher in avoidance and girls higher in preoccupation/ambivalence [2,[24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. This pattern has been replicated in North America, Europe, Israel, South Korea, and China, with dimensional scores from questionnaires and categorical classifications from doll-play tasks.…”

Impacts of hydrochemical processes on groundwater charcateristics in El-Dir area, West of Sohag City, Egypt.

“…Because of the decomposing organic matter in the groundwater may have occurred naturally or as a result of artificial sources. The potassium concentrations in groundwater ranged from 3-22 mg/L with an average of 1.30 mg/L showing the potential for sewage and fertilizer pollution of groundwater (Choi, 1988;Gedamy, 2015).…”