Conference Agenda

Background. Extensive research has examined the developmental advantages and disadvantages associated with caregiver sensitivity and secure and disorganized parent-child attachment, respectively. Given the large number of meta-analyses that now exist on these topics, the objectives of this umbrella review were to quantitatively synthesize findings about developmental correlates of (1) caregiver sensitivity, (2) attachment security, and (3) attachment disorganization.

Methods. Following PRISMA guidelines, searches in EMBASE, PsycINFO, and Medline yielded 2,157 for caregiver sensitivity and 6,024 abstracts for attachment security and disorganization. Meta-analytic studies were included if they reported an association between caregiver sensitivity and/or parent-child attachment security and child outcomes. Meta-analyses had to be in English, French, or Spanish.

Results. 10 meta-analyses on sensitivity, 11 meta-analyses on attachment security, and five meta-analyses on attachment disorganization met our inclusion criteria. Results demonstrated that caregiver sensitivity was associated with attachment security (r = .25, k = 253), cognition (r =.23, k = 44) language skills (r = .26, k = 54), and socioemotional problems (r = -.07, k = 135). Attachment security was associated with theory of mind (r =.13, k =12), social competence (r = .19, k = 100), externalizing behavior (r = -.16, k = 77), and internalizing symptoms (r = -.18, k = 64). Attachment disorganization was associated with externalizing (r = .16, k = 36) behaviors and internalizing symptoms (r = .11, k = 20).

Conclusions. Our review highlights the developmental advantage of caregiver sensitivity and attachment security in children, underscoring its clinical and practical significance. Our review also highlights the negative consequences of attachment disorganization for later psychopathology. By conducting large scale efforts to promote caregiver sensitivity and attachment security, we not only have the potential of supporting children’s developmental health, but also to benefit society at large.

Background. Research has demonstrated that a key predictor of executive function (EF) skills is parent-child attachment security (e.g., Bernier et al., 2012). However, despite the role attachment security plays in EF development, findings are mixed and to date there is no meta-analytic study of this association.

Method: Data were drawn from the Child Attachment Studies Catalogue and Data Exchange (CASCADE; Madigan, 2020). Studies drawn from CASCADE for this meta-analysis included those with an association between attachment quality and a measure of EF. Consistent with prior meta-analyses (i.e., Robson et al., 2020) studies measuring EF prior to 36 months of age were excluded due to developmental constraints. This resulted in a total of k = 19 studies and 59 effect sizes comprised of 8,758 participants were included in the current meta-analysis. A random-effects multilevel meta-analysis was conducted using the r package metafor as there were multiple effect sizes nested within studies.

Results. The results revealed a significant, positive and moderate association between parent-child attachment security and EF skills (r =.19, 95% CI [.15, .23; n = 8,758 parent-child dyads. The association was stronger for younger children (r = -.004, 95% CI [-.006, -.002].

Conclusion. These results suggest that parent-child attachment security may be an important predictor of EF skills. These findings are consistent with attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969/1982), which proposes that children first begin to learn and use regulatory processes with support from their caregiver in early life and then begin to apply these strategies in other relationships and contexts throughout their lives. Importantly, this is the first meta-analytic review of the association between parent-child attachment security and EF skills. By synthesizing findings across studies and examining key moderators, we gain insights into our understanding of factors that might support the development of EF skills.

Background. A key premise within the attachment literature is that early experiences with caregivers have an impact on the (non)emergence of psychopathology over time. Meta-analytic studies have confirmed the importance of early attachment (Fearon et al., 2010; Groh et al., 2012) and parental sensitivity (Cooke et al., 2022) for subsequent psychopathology. However, most prior studies focused on the overall quality rather than the consistency of caregiving, even though Bowlby (1980) and Ainsworth et al. (1978) emphasized the importance of both for wellbeing. The present study examined whether associations between the quality and consistency of early caregiving experiences and symptoms of psychopathology endured over time using the modeling framework developed by Fraley et al. (2013).

Methods. Longitudinal data were drawn from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development. Maternal sensitivity was assessed when children were 6, 15, 24, and 36 months old during semi-structured interactions. Multilevel models were used to extract intercepts (representing overall quality), slopes (representing linear change), and absolute sums of residuals (representing inconsistency) for each participant who had at least three assessments of caregiver sensitivity available (N = 1,201). Symptoms of psychopathology were assessed with the Teacher Report Form (Achenbach, 1991) annually from kindergarten through Grade 6, the Youth Self-Report (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001) at ages 15 and 18, and the Adult Self-Report (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2003) at age 30.

Results. Enduring effects were observed for the association between overall early caregiving quality and lower subsequent total and externalizing symptoms. In contrast, enduring effects were observed for the consistency of early caregiving only with subsequently lower internalizing symptoms.

Conclusion. These results partially align with findings from a high-risk sample—the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation (MLSRA)—regarding caregiving quality. However, these results fail to replicate associations between caregiving inconsistency and psychopathology in the MLSRA.

Background. Building on our programmatic series of meta-analyses documenting the significance of early attachment for children’s (mal)adjustment across domains (Groh et al., 2017), we are conducting a complementary series of meta-analyses on early temperamental reactivity to evaluate the relative developmental significance of attachment and temperament (Borowski et al., 2021). Our work has demonstrated that both early attachment security and temperamental difficulty are associated with children’s subsequent social competence with peers, but that the magnitude of this association is larger for attachment (|r|=0.19) than temperament (|r|=0.10). This meta-analysis extends this work by quantitatively synthesizing the literature on early temperamental reactivity and externalizing problems and comparing the magnitude of the meta-analytic effect to that for attachment.

Methods. A literature search was conducted in PsycINFO and Web of Science (k=154,025). Articles assessing temperament from birth to age six and externalizing problems concurrently or subsequently were included. Preliminary results are based on 119 coded independent studies (N=68,032). Articles were coded using the Borowski et al. (2021) system, and effect sizes were extracted for difficult temperament in relation to externalizing behaviors.

Results: A significant, but weak, association was found between early difficult temperament and externalizing problems (r=0.12). Like our prior meta-analysis on temperament and social competence, the meta-analytic association was stronger when the same (r=0.17) versus different (r=0.09) informants rated both constructs and when temperament and externalizing measures included overlapping (r=0.24) versus non-overlapping (r=0.06) items, suggesting such practices inflate effect sizes. When overlapping informants and items were removed, the meta-analytic association was attenuated (r=0.06, 85% CI[0.04, 0.09]) and significantly smaller than the meta-analytic association between early attachment insecurity and externalizing problems (r=0.15, 85% CI[0.12, 0.18], k=69; Fearon et al., 2010).

Conclusions: Findings clarify the relative developmental significance of attachment and temperament, demonstrating that attachment insecurity and, to a lesser extent, temperamental difficulty pose risks for subsequent externalizing problems.