The Relationship Between Attachment Behaviors and Narrative Representations about Mothers by 3 and 4 year-old Children

Subjects were 66 3- to 4-year-old-Children of unemployed mothers from upper middle class families. Attachment behaviors were measured with the Preschool Strange Situation(Cassidy and Marvin, 1992) and classified as secure, avoidant, dependent, or disorganized. Narrative representations of mothers by Chidren were obtained by video taped interviews using the MacArthur Story-Stem Battery and coded by the MacArthur Narrative Working Group(1997) system. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics and t test. Results were that children in the secure group showed more positive representations of their mothers, more prosocial story themes, had higher scores in theme coherence and showed more positive emotional expression than those in the insecure group. The attachment behaviors of the 4 groups(A, B, C, D) were closely correlated with the attachment representations shown in MSSBope