Attachment theory explores the implications of caregiver responsiveness for individuals’ internal working models of how future relationships should function (Bowlby, 1988). Avoidant attachment stems from unresponsive parenting (Ainsworth, 1979) and is characterized by distrust of relationship partners and a need for self-reliance. Attachment avoidance in caregivers has been associated with stress directly after birth, emotional distance from one’s child, and lower levels of satisfaction and meaning in parenting (Nelson-Coffey et al., 2017; Rholes, 2006).
By contrast, compassionate caregiving goals lead to loving and supportive views of others, whereas self-image goals involve comparative and competitive views of others. These mindsets have been associated with differences in relationship goals, self-esteem, and mental wellbeing (Canevello & Crocker, 2015). Few studies have considered how these goals may explain the link between parenting experiences and attachment style. We expect to find that attachment avoidance is negatively associated with compassionate goals and positively associated with self-image goals, which in turn predict emotion and parenting outcomes.
We conducted a 9-day longitudinal diary study using Amazon Mechanical Turk. After completing an initial survey including measures of their caregiving goals, participants (N=271 parents with at least one child in the home; Mage =36.06; 64.9% female) were asked to reflect on an experience that they had with their child each day for days 2 to 8 of the study. The focus of this presentation is on data analyzed from the initial survey and the first daily diary survey.
In our analysis, we tested indirect effects of attachment avoidance on parent emotions, need satisfaction, parental reflective functioning, and child adjustment (maladjustment, positive and negative behavior) via self- image and compassionate caregiving goals. The results showed that attachment-related avoidance predicted lower levels of compassionate goals in caregiving, which in turn predicted more child positive behavior, curiosity about mental states, empathetic emotions, connectedness, autonomy, and competence. Additionally, compassionate goals were negatively related to child maladjustment, negative child behavior, and pre-mentalizing. This research implies that those with an avoidant attachment may have difficulty creating compassionate goals, which in turn predict a number of important emotional and parenting outcomes.
