Is middle childhood attachment related to social functioning in young adulthood?
Abstract
The aim of the present study (N = 69) was to examine whether middle childhood attachment, measured using the Separation Anxiety Test (Slough, Goyette & Greenberg, 1988), predicts aspects of social functioning (social initiative, prosocial orientation, social anxiety, loneliness) in young adulthood. Insecurity‐avoidance at age 8.5 years was, as expected, negatively related to social initiative and prosocial orientation, and was also positively related to social anxiety and loneliness at age 21 years. In addition, insecurity‐avoidance contributed to developmental change in social anxiety from middle childhood to young adulthood. Contrary to our expectations, the two security scales were generally unrelated to future social functioning. Taken together, these results extend previous research by showing that insecurity‐avoidance is related to social functioning also beyond childhood and adolescence, and that it contributes to developmental change in social functioning over time. The scarcity of prospective links for the attachment security scales points to the need for future studies addressing when and why attachment does not contribute to future social functioning.
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Loneliness has been found to be associated with attachment and social anxiety but was not included in prior work.
“Also, other important interpersonal outcomes, such as loneliness, have also been found to be associated with attachment (Fransson et al., 2016;Wiseman et al., 2006) and social anxiety (Lasgaard et al., 2011) but were not included in this prior work.”
From Social anxiety mediates the effect of attachment to parents on friendships and loneliness during the college transition (2023) · cites this paper as Fransson et al., 2016
Cites
Fearon, R. P., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., Van IJzendoorn, M. H., Lapsley, A.-M., & Roisman, G. I. (2010) · Child Development · doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01405.x · Cited by 1,326 · see citing works
Groh, A. M., Roisman, G. I., van IJzendoorn, M. H., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., & Fearon, R. P. (2012) · Child Development · doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01711.x · Cited by 638 · cited 2× · see citing works
“Our results are also in line with previous studies (e.g., Groh et al., 2012) challenging the assumption that insecurity-avoidance is specifically related to externalizing and not internalizing behavioral problems (e.g., Finnegan, Hodges & Perry, 1996).”
BackgroundResultGroh, A. M., Fearon, R. P., Bakermans-Kranenburg, M. J., van IJzendoorn, M. H., Steele, R. D., & Roisman, G. I. (2014) · Attachment & Human Development · doi:10.1080/14616734.2014.883636 · Cited by 495 · cited 4× · see citing works
“…relations between insecurity-avoidance and social initiative and prosocial orientation, respectively, are conceptually in line with recent meta-analytic findings (e.g., Groh et al., 2014) linking avoidance in infancy and early childhood to lower social competence in childhood and adolescence.”
BackgroundResultInfluentialMeta-analytic evidence for stability in attachments from infancy to early adulthood
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Early child–parent attachment and peer relations: A meta-analysis of recent research.
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Mother–child attachment and social anxiety symptoms in middle childhood
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Carcedo, R. J., Vázquez-Iglesias, P., Parade, S., Herreros-Fraile, A., & Hervalejo, D. (2023) · Current Psychology · doi:10.1007/s12144-022-03868-4 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
- Authors
- Fransson, M., Granqvist, P., Marciszko, C., Hagekull, B., & Bohlin, G.
- Affiliations
- Uppsala University (SE)
- Stockholm University (SE)
- Department of Psychology Uppsala University Uppsala Sweden
- Corresponding author
- Fransson, Mari
- ORCID
- Granqvist, Pehr
- Venue
- Scandinavian Journal of Psychology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2016-03-05
- Volume
- 57
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 108-116
- ISSN
- 0036-5564 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9450
- OpenAlex
- W2311350999
- Cited by
- 17
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 1 · 2018: 2 · 2016: 1
- FWCI
- 2.09
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Scandinavian Journal of Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Attachment and Relationship Dynamics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Keywords
- attachment, middle childhood, social functioning, early adulthood, attachment security, social anxiety, loneliness, social initiatives, prosocial orientation, developmental changes
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Anxiety, Child, Child Behavior, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Loneliness, Longitudinal Studies, Male, Object Attachment, Surveys and Questionnaires, Social Behavior, Young Adult
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