Associations between Caregivers\u27 Global and Specific Attachment Representations and the Infant-Caregiver Attachment Relationship

The primary objectives of the current study were: (1)to determine the extent to which caregivers’ conceptualizations of their own attachment history (global attachment representations are congruent with the way in which they conceptualize their relationships with a specific child (relationship-specific attachment representations); and (2)to evaluate whether these relationship-specific representations play a mediating role in the intergenerational transmission of attachment. Prenatal assessments of caregivers’ global attachment representations, as measured by the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), and relationship-specific attachment representations, as measured by the Working Model of the Child Interview (WMCI), were obtained in a sample of 196 mother-infant dyads. Infant-caregiver attachment status was assessed using the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP) when infants were 12 months of age. Considerable correspondence was found between caregivers’ global and relationship-specific attachment representations; however, there was no evidence for the mediational hypothesis. The current study makes a significant contribution to the literature as it represents the first attempt to directly evaluate the links between caregivers’ global and relationship-specific attachment representations within the domain of caregiver-child relationships