Like Mother, Like Daughter? A Study of Attachment Style and Explanatory Style Across Generations

Like Mother, Like Daughter? A Study of Attachment Style and

Explanatory Style Across Generations

Jenica Riehle Beloit College

Fall 2006

Purpose• To explore the construct of

attachment security in relation to explanatory style.

• Few research studies connect secure attachment and explanatory style, and few research studies examine these factors together across generations (i.e. mother and daughter).

What is Attachment?• Attachment is a relationship quality

between two people, usually studied between mother and child

• In adulthood it is also measured as a style, kind of like a personality trait

• Developed through the study of primates and humans, attachment theory was initially based on observations of infant-mother relationships as well as relationships between mothers and young children (Marvin & Britner, 1999).

What is Attachment?• “Attachment behaviour is conceived

as any form of behaviour that results in a person attaining or retaining proximity to some other differentiated and preferred individual, who is usually conceived as stronger and/or wiser”

(Bowlby, 1979, p. 129).

• John Bowlby (1979) ~ explained the theory of attachment in development

• Initial mother-infant relationship studies in strange situation by Mary Ainsworth et al. (1971)

• Mary Main et al. (1985) devised the Adult Attachment Interview to measure attachment in adults

• Other adult attachment measurements were devised (e.g. Bartholomew and Horowitz, 1991)

Attachment History

Main’s AAI ratings•Adults are placed into one of three categories based on their interview:•Autonomous/ Secure - these adults value attachment relationships and think them as being integral parts to the formation of their own personality. Their descriptions are coherent no matter if the subject of discussion is positive or negative.•Dismissing - these adults are more likely to deny the importance of attachment relationships or to value their relationship partners more than themselves without giving a solid reason why. They tend to have a poor memory of childhood experiences.•Preoccupied - these adults are still caught up with thinking through past relationships so are not able to describe them in a coherent way•(Main, Kaplan, & Cassidy, 1985)

• Bartholomew’s (1990) model of the self is dichotomized in either a positive or negative: • the self viewed as worthy of love and attention vs. being unworthy of love an attention • the model of the attachment figure is either positive or negative: • the other is viewed as available and caring vs. viewed as rejecting, distant, and uncaring(cited in Feeney & Noller, 1996).

table (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991, p. 227)

    Model of Self (dependence)

   Positive

(low)Negative (high)

Model of Other

(Avoidance)

Positive (low)

Cell I Secure Comfortable with

intimacy and autonomy

Cell II Preoccupied

Preoccupied with relationships

Negative (high)

Cell IV Dismissing

Dismissing of intimacy Counter-

dependent

Cell III Fearful

Fearful of intimacy Socially avoidant

Self-Report Measurement = Attachment Style

Measurement- Relationship Questionnaire

1. “It is easy for me to become emotionally close to others. I am comfortable depending on them and having them depend on me. I don’t worry about being alone or having others not accept me.” Secure

2. “I am uncomfortable getting close to others. I want emotionally close relationships, but I find it difficult to trust others completely, or to depend on them. I worry that I will be hurt if I allow myself to become too close to others.” Fearful

3. “I want to be completely emotionally intimate with others, but I often find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I am uncomfortable being without close relationships, but I sometimes worry that others don’t value me as much as I value them.” Preoccupied

4. “I am comfortable without close emotional relationships. It is very important to me to feel independent and self-sufficient, and I prefer not to depend on others or have others depend on me.” Dismissive Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1990

What is explanatory style?

• “[Explanatory style is one’s tendency to offer similar sorts of explanations for different events”

(Peterson, Buchanan, & Seligman, 1995, p. 1 )

• Positive explanation + negative event = external, unstable, and specific: I didn’t get the job because the interviewer was having a bad day and was not able to pay attention to my answers

• Negative explanation + negative event = internal, stable, and global: I didn’t get the job because I never know what to say in an interview and I never try hard enough

• Negative explanation + positive event = external, unstable, and specific: I was hired for the job because the boss was having a good day and thought I could do the job

• Positive explanation + positive event = internal, stable, and global: I was hired for the job because I had worked hard during the training for it and was the best one qualified to do the job (Peterson, Buchanan, & Seligman, 1995).

Measurement• The Attributional Style Questionnaire

(ASQ) is a self-report measurement developed by Seligman et al. in 1979 (see

Peterson, Buchanan, & Seligman, 1995). • The questionnaire describes 12 specific

events:• 6 positive, e.g. “you become very rich,” • 6 negative e.g. “you cannot get all the work

done that others expect you to do”• The explanations are rated on the three

different variables: internal/external, stable/unstable, global/specific

Attachment style, Explanatory style, Mothers, and Daughters• In studies involving both measurements:

• Secure attachment styles have predicted positive or optimistic outlooks on life while insecure attachment styles have predicted negative or pessimistic outlooks on life (Hjelle et al., 1996; Greenberger & Mclaughlin, 1998; Salzman, 1996; Laible, Carlo, & Roesch, 2004)

• Secure males have greater coping strategies while secure females have greater optimism scores

(Greenberger & McLaughlin, 1998)

• In studies looking at college-age women and their mothers:

• Mothers and daughters tend to have similar responses to social situations

(Stednitz & Epkins, 2006)

Current Study• The current study measured and

compared the attachment styles and explanatory styles of college-aged women and their primary care-giving mothers.

HypothesesIt was hypothesized that:

• 1. secure attachment style would predict a positive explanatory style in all participants. Insecure attachment style was predicted to be associated with a negative explanatory style.

• 2. the mothers’ attachment style would correspond with the daughters’ attachment style.

• 3. the mothers’ explanatory style would correspond with the daughters’ explanatory style.

• Furthermore, there was an interest in looking at how a mother’s attachment style and explanatory style interacted to affect a daughter’s explanatory style.

Method• Participants:

44 female college students between the ages of 17 and 22 (mean age = 19.32, SD = 1.36) from a liberal arts college in the Midwest as well as their mothers between the ages of 44 and 61 (mean age = 51.27, SD = 3.89).

77% of the mothers responded which produced data for 44 mother-daughter dyads.

Measurements:• A demographics questionnaire• The Relationship Questionnaire (RQ)

– a self-report questionnaire developed by Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991) and was used to measure attachment behaviors using descriptions of personal feelings about personal relationships.

• The Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ) – a self-report questionnaire developed by Peterson et al.

(1982) which describes twelve hypothetical situations (six bad events and six good events) and was used by asking participants to give causes for each event. Participants are also asked to rate these causes in internality vs. externality, stability vs. instability, and globality vs. specificity on a 7-point scale.

Procedure:• A screening question was asked

about primary caregiver: When you were younger which of your parents spent the most time caring for you? The participants whose mothers were the primary caregivers were allowed to continue with the survey.

• Student participants filled out the surveys on campus. After filling out the surveys each participant gave contact information for her mother. Survey questionnaires were mailed to the mothers.

ResultsMean ASQ score: • whole group: 1.69 (SD = .335)• Mothers: 1.71 (SD = .527) • Daughters: 1.67 (SD = .412) Attachment Style:• Mothers: Daughters:

61.4% Secure 25.0% Secure 6.8% Fearful 38.7% Fearful11.3% Preoccupied 22.7% Preoccupied20.5% Dismissive 13.6% Dismissive

• A Pearson Chi-square test showed that mothers as a group were different from daughters as a group, {χ2(3, N=88 ) = 18.804, p < .001}

Results (continued)• A One-way ANOVA: Explanatory Style by

Attachment Style• An association between the two measurements

was revealed, F (4, 84) = 6.52, p <.001. • Participants who rated themselves as Secure had

the highest Attributional Style score with a mean of 3.26 (SD = 2.42).

• Those participants who rated themselves as Preoccupied and Dismissive were not significantly different from each other with a mean of 1.24 and 1.82 (SD = 3.10 and 2.05) respectively.

• Those participants who rated themselves as Fearful had the lowest Attributional Style score with a mean of .375 (SD = 2.49).

Attributional Style and Attachment Style

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

Secure Fearful Preoccupied Dismissive

Attachment Style

Mea

n S

core

s o

f A

ttri

bu

tio

nal

S

tyle

Results (continued)• A Tukey HSD test:

• those participants who rated themselves as Secure are different from those rating themselves as Fearful and Preoccupied, p< .000 and p< .046 respectively. Those participants who rated themselves as Dismissive were not significantly different from the other three.

• A Pearson Chi-Square test looking at mother Attachment Style by daughter Attachment Style showed no significant relationship between the two, but inspection of the data reveals that secure mothers were more likely to have fearful daughters than secure daughters.

• Contrary to prediction, mothers and daughters were not similar in attachment.

Mother Attachment  

Secure Fearful

Preoccupied Dismissive Total

Daughter Attachment

Secure 9 0 2 0 11

Fearful 10 2 2 3 17

Preoccupied 6 0 0 4 10

Dismissive 2 1 1 2 6

Total 27 3 5 9 44

Additional Analysis• A Two-way ANOVA looking at group

(mothers and daughters) and attachment to predict Explanatory Style:

• revealed a corrected model significance, F (7, 80) = 2.78, p = .012, with attachment style being the only significant predictor of Explanatory Style score, F (3, 84) = 3.65, p = .016.

• The group a participant belonged to was not a significant predictor of Explanatory Style score, meaning that mothers and daughters did not differ in level of optimism.

• A follow-up T-test revealed that mothers were more optimistic than daughters were

{t (86) = -2.038, p = .045}

• There was no significant correlation between mothers’ explanatory style and daughters’ explanatory style within dyads.

• Daughters were not like mothers in either attachment style or explanatory style.

Discussion• Some Hypotheses were supported,

while others were not

• Daughters’ insecure attachment style possibly due to divorced parents

• Mothers’ more optimistic style based on different generational factors

Conclusion• A crucial first step at attempting to

associate attachment style with explanatory style

• Further studies

• Findings of this study

• More support could be given to college students who are going through the transitional college experience

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Acknowledgments• I would like to thank:Suzanne Cox and Whitney Sweeney for

being wonderful advisors and reading my thesis and helping with my research,

Anthony Domanico, my Fiancé, for sticking by my side through all the long nights, as well as reading multiple drafts

The Psychology Department for funding my project,

The participants, daughters and mothers, for giving me their time,

And my parents and sisters for reading my thesis on their vacation time and giving great criticism.

Questions?

Thank you for coming!