title: Taking stock of two decades of attachment transmission gap: broadening the assessment of maternal behavior.
abstract: This report aimed to investigate the capacity of maternal behaviors tailored to children's attachment and exploration systems to jointly explain the well-known mother-child transmission of attachment. Four home visits were conducted between ages 7 months and 2 years with 130 mother-child dyads to assess maternal attachment state of mind, sensitivity, autonomy support, and mother-child attachment security. Results showed that together, maternal sensitivity and autonomy support fully accounted for the relation between maternal and child attachment, that they each accounted for a unique portion of this relation, and that the magnitude of these mediated pathways was equivalent. These results suggest that the attachment transmission gap can be narrowed by the use of a theory-driven multidimensional approach to maternal behavior.
authors.affiliation: University of Montreal.
authors.forename: Annie
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bernier
authors.forename: Célia
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Matte-Gagné
authors.forename: Marie-Ève
authors.initials: MÈ
authors.lastname: Bélanger
authors.forename: Natasha
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Whipple
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D008425:Maternal Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009034:Mother-Child Relations / Q000523:psychology*; D009769:Object Attachment; D055815:Young Adult