Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry
ARTICLESAttachment and Externalizing Disorders: A Developmental Psychopathology Perspective
Section snippets
Externalizing Disorders
The DSM-IV (American Psychiatric Association, 1994) presents attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), ODD, and CD as the attention-deficit and disruptive behavior disorders. ADHD is clearly understood as a neurodevelopmental, biologically based disorder, and the characteristics of the child's social relationships are not diagnostic criteria, whereas ODD and CD are defined by significant interpersonal and socialization problems. Genetic research suggests that it is important to
ATTACHMENT AND CLINICALLY RELEVANT OUTCOMES
Attachment theory (Ainsworth et al., 1978, Bowlby, 1969/1982) offers an intriguing formulation of protection and risk that ties together key aspects of behavior, emotion, and cognition. It originated in efforts to understand the development of normal behavior and psychopathology, and we believe its strength as a construct rests in this dual aspect rather than solely as an explanatory factor for deviant or extreme behaviors. Of critical importance in teasing out developmental processes,
REVIEW OF ATTACHMENT THEORY
Bowlby introduced the term attachment to refer to a secure base formulation of infant-caregiver relationships. The attachment system is a biologically based behavioral system that is in constant interplay with the exploratory behavioral system (Bretherton, 1985). The exploratory system promotes survival by allowing access to information about the environment and the world and opportunities for mastery. The attachment system has a complementary purpose of ensuring the child's safety by
Attachment Patterns
Just as naturally occurring attachment behavior is elicited by novelty, danger, and distress, laboratory assessments use mild to moderate stresses to elicit the patterns of attachment. For example, in the “strange situation” (SS; Ainsworth et al., 1978), the stress consists of brief separations of the toddler from the caregiver, under the premise that separation activates the attachment system and reunion behavior reveals individual differences in children's underlying expectations about the
INTERGENERATIONAL TRANSMISSION
Frick and Jackson (1993) proposed a model that states (1) there is a genetic predisposition to antisocial behavior transmitted between parent and child; (2) this predisposition in the parent leads to a dysfunctional family environment; and (3) the predisposition in the child leads to the development of antisocial behavior. Indeed, research generally supports a mediation model that antisocial behavior and aggression lead to poor parenting, and poor parenting, especially by mothers, is linked to
ATTACHMENT BEHAVIORAL SYSTEM AND EXTERNALIZING DISORDERS
In analyses of familial predictors of adolescent conduct problems/delinquency, two socialization variables, harsh parenting and a lack of parental involvement in and poor supervision of their children's activities, are consistently associated with conduct problems (Frick and Jackson, 1993). Harsh parenting is associated with many factors including parental psychiatric disorders such as ADHD, depression, and APD, poverty and stress, and constructs such as negativity and expressed emotion, as
ATTACHMENT REPRESENTATIONS, SOCIAL ATTRIBUTIONS, AND EXTERNALIZING DISORDERS
Attachment representations have been hypothesized to be cognitive, script-like structures that develop out of attachment experiences and expectations of parents in childhood (Bowlby, 1969/1982, Bretherton and Munholland, 1999, Main et al., 1985). They guide behavior, feelings, and cognitions both in the parent- child relationship and in subsequent close relationships. Representations of events are not mirror images of the actual events; rather, people construct representations in accord with
Problem of Measurement
Many symptoms of externalizing disorders appear in middle and late childhood or even adolescence. Unfortunately, the best-validated attachment methodology pertains to infancy and early childhood (e.g., the SS Ainsworth et al., 1978) and to late adolescenceor young adulthood (e.g., the Adult Attachment Interview Hesse, 1999). Some assessments of attachment in the school-age child have been developed, including the Separation Anxiety Test cards (Klagsbrun and Bowlby, 1976, Solomon and George,
REFERENCES (97)
- et al.
Comparing criteria for attachment disorders: establishing reliability and validity in high-risk samples
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(2004) - et al.
The confluence of mental, physical, social, and academic difficulties in middle childhood: I. Exploring the “headwaters” of early life morbidities
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(2002) - et al.
Psychopathology and antisocial behavior in the parents of children with conduct disorder and hyperactivity
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(1988) Antisocial behavior: more enduring than changeable?
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(1991)- et al.
Victimization among preschoolers: role of attachment relationship history
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(1987) - et al.
Patterns of Attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situation
(1978) - et al.
Effects on infant-mother attachment of mother's unresolved loss of an attachment figure or other traumatic experience
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(1994)- et al.
The epidemiology of disorders of conduct: nosological issues and comorbidity
- Bakermans-Kranenburg M, Bokhorst CL (2003), A large role for shared environment in infant attachment. Presented at the...
Indices of attachment disorganization among toddlers with neurological and non-neurological problems
Temperament and attachment security in the strange situation: an empirical rapprochement
Child Dev
Stability and transmission of attachment across three generations
Child Dev
Forty-four juvenile thieves: their characters and home life
Int J Psychoanal
Attachment and Loss (Vol. 1): Attachment
Attachment theory: retrospect and prospect
Monogr Soc Res Child Dev
Internal working models in attachment relationships: a construct revisited
Family dysfunction interacts with genes in the causation of antisocial symptoms
Behav Genet
Emotional reactivity and emotion regulation strategies as predictors of social behavior with peers in toddlerhood
Soc Dev
Contribution of attachment theory to developmental psychopathology
Emotion regulation: influences of attachment relationships
Monogr Soc Res Child Dev
Mothers' and fathers' working models of childhood attachment relationships, parenting styles, and child behavior
Dev Psychopathol
Individual differences in emotion regulation and behavior problems in preschool children
J Abnorm Psychol
Angry and aggressive behavior across three generations: a prospective, longitudinal study of parents and children
J Abnorm Child Psychol
Mothers' internal working models of relationships and children's behavioral and developmental status: a study of mother-child interaction
Child Dev
Mothers' models of parent-child relationships: relation to mother-child interaction and child behavior problems
Dev Psychopathol
Assessing secure base behavior in adulthood: development of a measure, links to attachment representations, and relations to couples' communication and reports of relationships
Dev Psychol
Developmental Psychopathology and Family Process: Theory, Research, and Clinical Implications
Disruptive behavior disorder and intergenerational attachment patterns: a comparison of normal and clinic referred preschoolers and their mothers
J Consult Clin Psychol
Theoretical and methodological considerations in cross-generational research on parenting and child aggressive behavior
J Abnorm Child Psychol
Preschool behavior problems: stability and factors accounting for change
J Child Psychol Psychiatry
Genetic and environmental influences on a measure of infant attachment security
Twin Res
Maternal representations of attachment during pregnancy predict the organization of infant-mother attachment at one year of age
Child Dev
Mother-toddler problem solving: antecedents in attachment, home behavior, and temperament
Child Dev
Family functioning and childhood antisocial behavior: yet another reinterpretation
J Child Clin Psychol
Familial risk factors to oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder: parental psychopathology and maternal parenting
J Consult Clin Psychol
Transmission disequilibrium tests confirm the link between DRD4 gene polymorphism and infant attachment
Am J Med Genet
Genetic and environmental influences on aggression in 4- to 7-year-old twins
Aggress Behav
Infant-mother attachment and behavior problems in healthy and clinically ill preschoolers
Dev Psychopathol
A new method of evaluating attachment representations in young school-age children: the Manchester Child Attachment Story Task
Attach Hum Dev
Attachment and psychopathology in childhood
Contributions of attachment theory to the understanding of conduct problems during the preschool years
Attachment security in preschoolers with and without externalizing behavior problems: a replication
Dev Psychopathol
Maternal sensitivity and newborns' orientation responses as related to quality of attachment in northern Germany
Monogr Soc Res Child Dev
Early adversity and the development of stress reactivity and regulation
Attachment, temperament, and adrenocortical activity in infancy: a study of psychoendocrine regulation
Dev Psychol
The Adult Attachment Interview: historical and current perspective
Cited by (0)
The authors thank Daniel Klein, Ph.D., Theodore Carr, Ph.D., and Everett Waters, Ph.D., for their helpful comments and assistance in preparing the manuscript.
Disclosure: The authors have no financial relationships to disclose.