Ashley M. Groh

Distinguishing differential susceptibility from diathesis–stress: Recommendations for evaluating interaction effects

This report describes the state of the art in distinguishing data generated by differential susceptibility from diathesis-stress models. We discuss several limitations of existing practices for probing interaction effects and offer solutions that are designed to better differentiate differential susceptibility from diathesis-stress models and quantify their corresponding implications. In addition, we demonstrate the utility of these methods by revisiting published evidence suggesting that temperamental difficulty serves as a marker of enhanced susceptibility to early maternal caregiving across a range of outcome domains in the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. We find that, with the exception of mother reports of psychopathology, there is consistent evidence in the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development that the predictive significance of early sensitivity is moderated by difficult temperament over time. However, differential susceptibility effects emerged primarily for teacher reports of academic skills, social competence, and symptomatology. In contrast, effects more consistent with the diathesis-stress model were obtained for mother reports of social skills and objective tests of academic skills. We conclude by discussing the value of the application of this work to the next wave of Gene × Environment studies focused on early caregiving experiences.

The Significance of Insecure and Disorganized Attachment for Children’s Internalizing Symptoms: A Meta-Analytic Study

This meta-analytic review examines the association between attachment and internalizing symptomatology during childhood, and compares the strength of this association with that for externalizing symptomatology. Based on 42 independent samples (N = 4,614), the association between insecurity and internalizing symptoms was small, yet significant (d = 0.15, CI 0.06~0.25) and not moderated by assessment age of internalizing problems. Avoidance, but not resistance (d = 0.03, CI -0.11~0.17) or disorganization (d = 0.08, CI -0.06~0.22), was significantly associated with internalizing symptoms (d = 0.17, CI 0.03~0.31). Insecurity and disorganization were more strongly associated with externalizing than internalizing symptoms. Discussion focuses on the significance of attachment for the development of internalizing versus externalizing symptomatology.

The significance of attachment security for children’s social competence with peers: a meta-analytic study

This meta-analytic review examines the association between attachment during the early life course and social competence with peers during childhood, and compares the strength of this association with those for externalizing and internalizing symptomatology. Based on 80 independent samples (N = 4441), the association between security and peer competence was significant (d = 0.39, CI 0.32; 0.47) and not moderated by the age at which peer competence was assessed. Avoidance (d = 0.17, CI 0.05; 0.30), resistance (d = 0.29, CI 0.09; 0.48), and disorganization (d = 0.25, CI 0.10; 0.40) were significantly associated with lower peer competence. Attachment security was significantly more strongly associated with peer competence than internalizing (but not externalizing) symptomatology. Discussion focuses on the significance of early attachment for the development of peer competence versus externalizing and internalizing psychopathology.

IV. STABILITY OF ATTACHMENT SECURITY FROM INFANCY TO LATE ADOLESCENCE

The first section of this Monograph emphasized methodological issues concerning the AAI (George et al., 1984–1996). From this point forward, we turn our attention to continuity and change in attachment security over time, and the antecedents of variation in adult attachment more generally. According to attachment theory, individuals develop internalized representations of their early attachment-relevant experiences with primary caregivers. Such representations are argued to have their roots in the attachment relationships that individuals share with their primary caregivers in early childhood (Bowlby, 1969/1982; Main et al., 1985). Thus, an important question concerns the degree to which attachment variation is stable over time. Accordingly, we begin this section by quantifying the degree of stability in attachment security from infancy to late adolescence, leveraging three measures of mother-child attachment security acquired from the SECCYD in early childhood. In infancy, individual differences in attachment are often measured using the Strange Situation procedure (Ainsworth et al., 1978), a laboratory procedure designed to activate infants’ attachment behavioral system via a series of increasingly stressful separations from and subsequent reunions with their primary caregivers. In brief, infants are classified as secure in the Strange Situation procedure when their separation distress is effectively relieved upon their caregiver’s return. Infants are classified as insecure if they either ignore their primary caregiver upon reunion (i.e., insecure-avoidant) or simultaneously seek, yet resist, their caregiver upon reunion (i.e., insecureresistant). Finally, infants who exhibit a momentary breakdown of one of these organized strategies are classified as disorganized (Main & Solomon, 1990).

Molecular-genetic correlates of infant attachment: A cautionary tale

This paper advises caution in relation to the increasing interest in molecular-genetic association studies in developmental psychology based on a set of empirical examples from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD) that highlight the fragility of effects reported in the literature on the molecular-genetic correlates of infant attachment. Specifically, this paper updates and provides three extensions to results reported in Luijk et al. (2011), which recently failed to replicate evidence from smaller-sample studies that a set of dopaminergic, serotonergic, and oxytonergic markers are significantly associated with infant attachment security or disorganization. First, we report here that the average effect of “usual suspect” polymorphisms on infant attachment security and disorganization in the SECCYD is approximately zero. Second, because Luijk et al. (2011) reported data based exclusively on the White infants in the SECCYD, this paper reveals that the average effect of polymorphisms featured in this literature is also of trivial magnitude in the non-White sub-sample (cf. Chen, Barth, Johnson, Gotlib, & Johnson, 2011). Third, this paper attempts, but fails, to replicate a recent finding by Raby et al. (2012) suggesting that, although molecular-genetic polymorphisms might not be implicated in security versus insecurity, the serotonin transporter gene contributes to variation in emotional distress during the Strange Situation Procedure. Implications for future research on the genetics of developmental phenotypes in general and attachment in particular are discussed, with a focus on statistical power and model-based theory testing.

V. CAREGIVING AND CONTEXTUAL SOURCES OF CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN ATTACHMENT SECURITY FROM INFANCY TO LATE ADOLESCENCE

In Chapter 4 (this volume), Groh et al. examined the stability of attachment security from infancy through late adolescence in a number of ways, and found evidence of significant but relatively weak stability of individual differences in security over the first two decades of life. We now focus our attention on identifying caregiving and contextual sources of variation that might contribute to the continuity and discontinuity in attachment security that we identified during this period, in order to examine whether such change is lawful. According to attachment theory, children’s early experiences with primary caregivers form the basis for the development of a secure or insecure attachment relationship, as well as a more generalized internal working model of attachment. This model is reinforced under conditions of relative stability in parent-child relationship quality over time. Updates to the model are hypothesized to occur with developmental change, but its relative stability is theorized to be ensured by the increasing automatization of caregiver-child interaction patterns as well as the child’s positive or negative perceptual biases arising from these habitual patterns (Bowlby, 1969/1982). Nonetheless, under stressful life circumstances and/or changing parent-child relationship quality, attachment security is less likely to be stable. That is, stressors that alter habitual patterns, the child’s expectation of the parent’s availability, or the parent’s actual availability and sensitivity may serve as agents of change toward insecurity. Similarly, improvements in caregiving quality and/or life circumstances would be expected to modify security in a positive direction (Waters, Weinfield, et al., 2000).

Maternal Dispositional Empathy and Electrodermal Reactivity: Interactive Contributions to Maternal Sensitivity with Toddler-Aged Children

The present study investigated maternal dispositional empathy and skin conductance level (SCL) reactivity to infant emotional cues as joint predictors of maternal sensitivity. Sixty-four mother-toddler dyads (31 boys) were observed across a series of interaction tasks during a laboratory visit, and maternal sensitivity was coded from approximately 55 minutes of observation per family. In a second, mother-only laboratory visit, maternal SCL reactivity to infant cues was assessed using a cry-laugh audio paradigm. Mothers reported on their dispositional empathy via a questionnaire. As hypothesized, mothers with greater dispositional empathy exhibited more sensitive behavior at low, but not high, levels of SCL reactivity to infant cues. Analyses examining self-reported emotional reactivity to the cry-laugh audio paradigm yielded a similar finding: Dispositional empathy was related to greater sensitivity when mothers reported low, but not high, negative emotional reactivity. Results provide support for Dixs (1991) affective model of parenting that underscores the combined contribution of the parents empathic tendencies and his or her own emotional experience in response to child emotions. Specificity of the Empathy × Reactivity interaction is discussed with respect to the context in which reactivity was assessed (infant cry vs. laugh) and the type of sensitivity examined (sensitivity to the childs distress vs. nondistress).

Mothers’ Neural and Behavioral Responses to Their Infants’ Distress Cues: The Role of Secure Base Script Knowledge:

This research examined mothers’ secure base script knowledge—reflected in the ability to generate narratives in which attachment-relevant problems are recognized, competent help is offered, and problems are resolved—and its significance for early-stage processing of infants’ distress cues, using event-related potentials in an emotion oddball task. Mothers with lower secure base script knowledge exhibited (a) a heightened P3b response—reflective of greater allocation of cognitive resources—to their infants’ distressed (but not happy) target facial expressions; (b) a larger P3b response to their infants’ distressed (compared with happy) target facial expressions, which is indicative of allocating disproportional attentional resources to processing their infants’ distress; and (c) poorer accuracy in identifying their infants’ distressed target facial expressions. Findings suggest that mothers’ attachment-relevant biases in processing their infants’ emotion cues are especially tied to infant distress and shed light on underlying mechanisms linking mothers’ attachment representations with sensitive responding to infant distress.

Maternal sensitivity during the first 3½ years of life predicts electrophysiological responding to and cognitive appraisals of infant crying at midlife.

This study examined the predictive significance of maternal sensitivity in early childhood for electrophysiological responding to and cognitive appraisals of infant crying at midlife in a sample of 73 adults (age = 39 years; 43 females; 58 parents) from the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation. When listening to an infant crying, both parents and nonparents who had experienced higher levels of maternal sensitivity in early childhood (between 3 and 42 months of age) exhibited larger changes from rest toward greater relative left (vs. right) frontal EEG activation, reflecting an approach-oriented response to distress. Parents who had experienced greater maternal sensitivity in early childhood also made fewer negative causal attributions about the infant’s crying; the association between sensitivity and attributions for infant crying was nonsignificant for nonparents. The current findings demonstrate that experiencing maternal sensitivity during the first 3½ years of life has long-term predictive significance for adults’ processing of infant distress signals more than three decades later.

The Significance of Insecure and Disorganized Attachment for Children’s Internalizing Symptoms: A Meta-Analytic Study: Attachment and Internalizing Symptoms

This meta-analytic review examines the association between attachment and internalizing symptomatology during childhood, and compares the strength of this association with that for externalizing symptomatology. Based on 42 independent samples (N = 4,614), the association between insecurity and internalizing symptoms was small, yet significant (d = 0.15, CI 0.06~0.25) and not moderated by assessment age of internalizing problems. Avoidance, but not resistance (d = 0.03, CI -0.11~0.17) or disorganization (d = 0.08, CI -0.06~0.22), was significantly associated with internalizing symptoms (d = 0.17, CI 0.03~0.31). Insecurity and disorganization were more strongly associated with externalizing than internalizing symptoms. Discussion focuses on the significance of attachment for the development of internalizing versus externalizing symptomatology.