Browsing by Author "Costello, Jacqueline"
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Item ATTACHMENT STATES OF MIND AND EARLY INTERVENTION AS PREDICTORS OF MIDDLE CHILDHOOD PARENTING OUTCOMES(University of Delaware, 2023-05) Costello, JacquelineThe current study aimed to explore how a parent may reflect on their attachment experiences (their attachment state of mind) and participation in an early parenting intervention, which affects parenting behaviors with their eight-year-old children. The Adult Attachment Interview was used to classify attachment state of mind for 74 parents. Parents were then randomized to receive an attachment-based or a developmental education intervention when their children were infants. During a middle childhood follow-up visit, parents completed the Attachment Script Assessment to measure their secure base script knowledge, and parent-child dyads completed a conflict discussion task to measure parental sensitivity. Consistent with Zajac et al. (2019) but with a different task, parents with autonomous states of mind displayed more sensitive caregiving when their children were eight years old than those with non-autonomous states of mind. These findings add to the robust literature supporting more positive outcomes for parents and their children later in life when parents have consistent and coherent representations of their attachment-related memories and participate in an attachment-based intervention.