Attachment Disorganization in Infancy: A Developmental Precursor to Hostile Attributional Bias at Age Eight

Introduction: Disorganized attachment in infancy is associated with problematic long-term outcomes (Van Ijzendoorn et al., 1999), such as difficulty forming positive peer relationships (Jacobvitz & Hazen, 1990), which places children at risk for criminal behavior, dropping out of school, and psychopathology (Parker & Asher, 1987). A proclivity to attribute hostile intent to peers’ ambiguous provocations, a social cognitive pattern known as hostile attributional bias, has been proposed as a key mechanism explaining why children develop problematic peer relations (Crick & Dodge, 1994). To our knowledge, attachment disorganization has not been linked to hostile attributional bias in middle childhood. The goal of this study is to examine attachment disorganization in infancy as a developmental precursor to hostile attribution bias at age eight. 

Methods:

Attachment

Attachment quality was assessed for 50 children in the Strange Situation when children were infants. Using guidelines specified by Main and Solomon (1990), children were classified as disorganized if they met the threshold for disorganized behaviors (e.g., freezing or stilling, disoriented wandering, approaching the stranger when upset, expressing fear when the parent returns). Coders agreed on 87% of the organized-disorganized classifications.

Social Information Processing

Children’s interpretations of ambiguous provocations with peers were assessed using the Social Information Processing Application (SIP-AP), a video-based measure, when children were eight. Multiple-choice questions assessed children’s negative attributions and how rejected, disrespected, or angry they would feel if situations depicted in the videos happened to them.

Results: 

Attachment

Thirty-one children were classified as having disorganized attachments, and 19 children were classified as having organized attachments.

Social Information Processing

Cue interpretation scales were averaged to create a composite score termed the negative attributions composite.

Children with disorganized attachments in infancy made more negative attributions, F (1, 48) = 4.35, p = .04, and reported feeling significantly more rejected, F (1, 48) = 8.38, p = .01, and angrier, F (1, 48) = 6.18, p = .02, when they were 8-years-old than children with organized attachments in infancy. 

Conclusions: Attachment disorganization assessed in infancy predicted hostile attributional bias at age eight. Attachment disorganization has been theorized to be associated with hostile attributional bias in middle childhood, but to our knowledge, this is the first study to provide empirical evidence of this association. As such, this study highlights the importance of intervening early to promote attachment organization in infancy.