Early attachment predicts emotion recognition at 6 and 11 years old

This paper reports on findings from a sample of 63 children at 6 years old, and 49 children at 11 years old, all from the same cohort who had been observed with mother in the Strange Situation at 1-year-old. At 6 and 11 years, the children responded to the task of providing verbal labels for line-dr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Attachment & human development 2008-12, Vol.10 (4), p.379-393
Main Authors: Steele, Howard, Steele, Miriam, Croft, Carla
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
attachment
Child
Child Development
Cohort Studies
developmental neuroscience
emotion judgments
emotion recognition
Emotions
facial expressions of emotion
Female
Humans
Male
Mother-Child Relations
Neurosciences
Object Attachment
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Summary:This paper reports on findings from a sample of 63 children at 6 years old, and 49 children at 11 years old, all from the same cohort who had been observed with mother in the Strange Situation at 1-year-old. At 6 and 11 years, the children responded to the task of providing verbal labels for line-drawn (caricatures of) emotion faces. The faces comprised the six basic emotions identified as such by Darwin (sadness, happiness, anger, fear, surprise, and disgust) as well as a neutral face and two more complex (blended) emotions (mischievousness and disappointment). Infant-mother attachment was linked significantly with children's emotion judgments 5 years and, to a lesser extent, 10 years after the Strange Situation assessment. Results are discussed in terms of the long-term but attenuating influence of early learning experiences in the relationship with mother, and implications for how we think about the functioning of internal working models of attachment.
ISSN:1461-6734
1469-2988
DOI:10.1080/14616730802461409