Intergenerational aspects of the development of aggression: a preliminary report.
Across studies in a variety of environmental settings, secure attachment relationships early in life are associated with a lower rate of abnormally aggressive patterns of behavior later in childhood. The quality of an attachment relationship can be predicted by a recently developed measure of parents' mental representations of their own early childhood relationships, the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). AAI classifications of single parents of abnormally aggressive preschoolers (n = 10) from two low income day care centers were compared with those of single parents of age-, race-, sex-, and center-matched controls (n = 10). All abnormally aggressive children had parents classified as insecure on the AAI; parents of all but one of the nonaggressive controls were classified as secure (p < .001). The AAI may be a useful intergenerational predictor of antisocial and resilient outcomes among children for whom a single caregiver is the only resource for longstanding attachment relationships. Efforts to enhance the constellation of children's early attachment relationships may serve to prevent antisocial outcome.
Constantino
J N
JN
Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri 63110, USA.
D000328:Adult; D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology*; D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D016241:Child of Impaired Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D016901:Intergenerational Relations; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008297:Male; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009769:Object Attachment; D010552:Personality Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors; D015406:Single Parent / Q000523:psychology*