What is it about?

Studies suggest that infants form disconcerting attachment patterns to mother and father, and stress the importance of assessing infants’ parental attachment relationships to evaluate their integrative effects on later life functioning. Such studies, however, are still few, based on small sample sizes, and not well designed longitudinally. This paper examines the mixed results regarding how attachment patterns to mothers and fathers affect important developmental outcomes and highlight the theoretical inconsistencies with respect to the model that best describes the organization of multiple attachment relationships and their effect on later development.

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Why is it important?

We review the literature on the unsettled issue of infant network of attachment to mother and father, and propose several explanatory models that lend themselves to future empirical testing. . In doing so, we use methodologies more robust and innovative methodologies than those employed thus far in the field.

Perspectives

I hope this paper sparks more robust research on the joint influence of infant-mother and -father attachment on later biobehaviroal outcomes.

Dr. Or Dagan
Stony Brook University

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This page is a summary of: Early Attachment Network with Mother and Father: An Unsettled Issue, Child Development Perspectives, November 2017, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/cdep.12272.
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