V. CAREGIVING AND CONTEXTUAL SOURCES OF CONTINUITY AND CHANGE IN ATTACHMENT SECURITY FROM INFANCY TO LATE ADOLESCENCE

In Chapter 4 (this volume), Groh et al. examined the stability of attachment security from infancy through late adolescence in a number of ways, and found evidence of significant but relatively weak stability of individual differences in security over the first two decades of life. We now focus our attention on identifying caregiving and contextual sources of variation that might contribute to the continuity and discontinuity in attachment security that we identified during this period, in order to examine whether such change is lawful. According to attachment theory, children’s early experiences with primary caregivers form the basis for the development of a secure or insecure attachment relationship, as well as a more generalized internal working model of attachment. This model is reinforced under conditions of relative stability in parent-child relationship quality over time. Updates to the model are hypothesized to occur with developmental change, but its relative stability is theorized to be ensured by the increasing automatization of caregiver-child interaction patterns as well as the child’s positive or negative perceptual biases arising from these habitual patterns (Bowlby, 1969/1982). Nonetheless, under stressful life circumstances and/or changing parent-child relationship quality, attachment security is less likely to be stable. That is, stressors that alter habitual patterns, the child’s expectation of the parent’s availability, or the parent’s actual availability and sensitivity may serve as agents of change toward insecurity. Similarly, improvements in caregiving quality and/or life circumstances would be expected to modify security in a positive direction (Waters, Weinfield, et al., 2000).