Mental representations of attachment and the perception of parental pratices by young adults / Representações mentais de apego e percepção de práticas parentais por jovens adultas

• Main Authors: Vanessa Fonseca Gomes, Cleonice Alves Bosa
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SpringerOpen 2010-01-01
• Series: Psicologia: Reflexão e Crítica
• Subjects: Attachment; Socio-cognition; Parental practices
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0102-79722010000100003&lng=pt&nrm=iso&tlng=pt

The aim of this study was to investigate whether mental representations of attachment affect the perception that young adults have while observing interactions of children and their mothers in a laboratory situation. Parental practices were defined as socio-cognitions (goals, plans, expectations and attributions) present during child rearing context. Those socio-cognitions were access through the observations of video-clips of mother-child interactions. Attachment was analyzed through the Attachment Script Assessment. The results showed that only two categories distinguished the two groups: Independence Development and Causal Attribution to Child Behavior, confirming partially the initial expectation of the study.