Middle childhood attachment and depressive symptoms. The role of an increased focus on mother during distress.

According to attachment theory, children’s experiences with unsupportive caregivers during distress and the resulting insecure attachment influence the development of depression. Although associations between insecure attachment and internalizing symptoms are apparent in infancy and early childhood, recent findings suggest that the influence of moderators on this association increases in the transition to adolescence. However, there is a huge gap in research aimed at unraveling why and when insecure attachment in middle childhood is associated with depressive symptoms. Theoretically, an increased attentional focus on mother has always been considered to be one possible developmental risk factor that can mediate this association, as it is supposed to be a feature of a maladaptive strategy to regulate distress employed by insecurely attached children. However, recent research suggests that moderators determine whether this focus is maladaptive. Therefore, a better understanding of the increased focus on mother and identification of the moderators in the relation between this focus and depressive symptoms is fundamental to improve attachment theory and inform clinical interventions. The current dissertation aimed to gain more insight in the role of an increased focus on mother in middle childhood in the development of depressive symptoms. Three studies were conducted to investigate two indicators of this increased focus on mother in middle childhood, namely repetitive thinking about mother (RTm) and a more narrow attentional field around mother, and how they relate to attachment in middle childhood and concurrent or future depressive symptoms. The first study showed positive associations between attachment anxiety, RTm during distress, and self-reported depressive symptoms and depressive symptoms agreed upon by mother and child. RTm during distress mediated the relationship between attachment anxiety and these depressive symptoms. RTm mediated this relationship even beyond repetitive thinking about negative affect for depressive symptoms agreed upon by mother and child. Thus, a fist indication was provided that RTm during distress is an independent mechanism explaining the association between attachment anxiety and depressive symptoms in middle childhood. The second study demonstrated that children who have a more narrow attentional field around the mother and who at the same time report more RTm during distress, have more depressive symptoms. The third study showed that especially when children are securely attached in middle childhood, the risk for developing depressive symptoms in response to distress two years later depends on the breadth of children’s attentional field around mother. When they have an increased focus on mother in middle childhood, there is no change in depressive symptoms whether or not they experience distress. When they have a less narrow attentional focus on mother, there is an increase in depressive symptoms when they experience more distressing events and a decrease when there are less distressing events. So, these findings highlight the protective role of an increased focus on mother in middle childhood for securely attached children who encounter distressing events in the transition to adolescence.status: publishe