The development of attachment and social relations in young children: A transactional and contextual model

Establishing a secure attachment to caregiver(s) is considered one of the fundamental milestones in children's development. It is hypothesized that trough interaction with the caregiver the child forms mental representations of the self, others and the ou ter world, viz. inner working models. Maternal sensitivity, that is the ability to read the child's cues and act on them effectively, has been hypothesized to be the prime cause of secure attachment. The resulting inner working models portray others as de pendable and benign. Secure children will act on these inner models and thereby have an inclination to be socially involved in others and the social and emotional capacities to do so, viz. have greater competence in per relations and more gratifying relat ions with adults. However, interactions with peers and teachers may influence the interaction with its parents and may moderate the effect of security on later social and emotional development. The empirical support for these contentions is moderate to mo dest, and this may be due to several shortcomings: lack of multiwave designs; few studies on preschoolers and schoolchildren; studies are commonly severely underpowered; limited set of predictors besides maternal sensitivity and temperament (not taking in to account others aspects of the parent-child relationship, contextual factors and child characteristics). We intend to remedy this situation by carrying out a 2-wave study on 1000 4-year olds, their parents and their day-care personnel/teachers. After s creening for mental health problems (with oversampling of children with problems) parents are interviewed about themselves and their children. The parent and the child then meets at NTNU for observation and testing, including parent-child interaction, obs ervation of attachment representation in the child (play in doll's house), testing of language skills, emotional competence, the child reporting on its own social competence, relations to teachers and to parents.