Premium
Insecure adult attachment style and depressive symptoms: Implications for parental perceptions of infant temperament
Author(s) -
Pesonen AnuKatriina,
Räikkönen Katri,
Strandberg Timo,
KeltikangasJärvinen Liisa,
Järvenpää AnnaLiisa
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
infant mental health journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.693
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 1097-0355
pISSN - 0163-9641
DOI - 10.1002/imhj.10092
Subject(s) - temperament , attachment theory , psychology , depressive symptoms , developmental psychology , perception , association (psychology) , longitudinal study , insecure attachment , clinical psychology , personality , depression (economics) , medicine , psychiatry , social psychology , anxiety , pathology , neuroscience , economics , psychotherapist , macroeconomics
The current study tested associations between parental depressive symptoms, adult attachment styles, and perceptions of infant temperament among 319 mother–infant and 173 father–infant dyads. Depressive symptoms and insecure attachment style among the mothers and/or fathers were associated with perceptions of the infant as temperamentally more negatively and/or less positively tuned. Multivariate analyses of depressive symptoms and attachment styles with perceived temperament suggest that depressive symptoms and perceived temperament remain significantly associated, while the associations between attachment styles and perceived temperament, in most instances, were reduced to nonsignificance. We also tested whether secure attachment among the parents buffered any negatively and/or positively tuned depression‐related perceptions, but found no supporting evidence. Even though the study results await replication in longitudinal designs, they nevertheless underline the significance of parental depressive information processing in the perceiving of infant temperament. ©2004 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.