Maternal Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) Collected During Pregnancy Predicts Reflective Functioning in AAIs from their First-Born Children 17 Years Later

Issue title: New insights into current attachment research

Guest editors: Lieselotte Ahnert

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Steele, Howard^* | Perez, Alejandra | Segal, Francesca | Steele, Miriam

Affiliations: Department of Psychology at New School for Social Research, Center for Attachment Research, NY, USA

Correspondence: [*] Address for correspondence: Howard Steele, 6th floor, 80 Fifth Avenue, Center for Attachment Research, The New School, New York, NY 10011, USA. E-mail: SteeleH@newschool.edu.

Abstract: 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 mothers’ AAI were appraised as free-autonomous/secure as opposed to insecure-dismissing. Discussion concerns the unique influence of mothers upon their first-born children’s development of reflective functioning skills, including the understanding of mind and emotion. Fathers, for whom AAIs were also available, appeared to have no influence on this process. RF scores from the adolescents did not differ as a function of either the previously observed infant-mother attachment or the infant-father attachment.

Keywords: Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), reflective functioning, adolescence, attachment, longitudinal study

DOI: 10.3233/DEV-16201

Journal: International Journal of Developmental Science, vol. 10, no. 3-4, pp. 117-124, 2016