Transgenerational attachment in Manisa, Turkey
Selma Şen
Gynecology and Obstetrics Nursing, Dumlupinar University College of Health, Kutahya, Turkey
Oya Kavlak
Gynecology and Obstetrics, School of Nursing, Ege University, Izmir, Turkey
PP: 126 - 132
Abstract
Objective: This study was conducted with the purpose of proving transgenerational attachment by determining the relationship between the adult attachment patterns of mothers and grandmothers as well as the relationship between the adult attachment patterns of mothers and maternal attachment.
Methods: The population of the study consisted of mothers and grandmothers registered with the Manisa Village Clinics. This descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted between January and July 2007. The universe of research consisted of 1400 infants between 1 and 4 months old and their mothers and grandmothers who lived in the urban center of Manisa. Consequently, research was conducted with 140 mothers and their own mothers by determining the number of individuals needed to serve as sample from 11 village clinics by the Stratified Random Sampling Method. As tools for data collection, a Maternal Attachment Inventory, an Inventory of Experiences in Close Relationships and forms collecting information relating to mothers and grandmothers were prepared and used by the researchers.
Results: A positive, strong and significant correlation was determined between the anxiety and avoidance attachment patterns of the mothers and those of the grandmothers (Anxiety: r=0.556, p<0.001; Avoidance: r=0.683, p<0.001). A negative correlation of medium significance was determined between the anxiety and avoidance attachment patterns of mothers and their maternal attachment (Anxiety: r=-0.321, p<0.05; Avoidance: r=-0.281, p<0.05).
It is thought that attachment patterns are transmitted across generations. Considering the fact that attachment is a multifactorial process, it is suggested that nurses and other health personnel should support families in improving the quality of parent-baby interaction.
Additional research is needed to focus on improving the analysis and development of new strategies which will enrich the secure attachment level of the mothers of today, who will become the grandmothers of the future.
Keywords
Attachment, maternal attachment, adult attachment, intergenerational transmission
Article Text
The theory of attachment is an approach which explains the tendency of people to develop strong emotional ties with people they care about (Caye, Cooke, McMahon & Karen, 1992; Olds, London & Ladewig, 1984). Bowlby defines attachment as the development of a satisfactory and pleasing emotional bond between the child and the mother figure in the early years of childhood. Crying, sucking, smiling and clinging are stated to be behaviors of attachment. These behaviors start the interaction of attachment between the mother and the child (Littleton & Engebretson, 2002; Mercer & Ferketich, 1994).
According to the theory of attachment, a baby's incapability of developing a reliable relationship of attachment with one or more persons decreases the ability of developing close relationships in the future and in adulthood (Feeney, 1999).
Attachment is established by observing the present ties and experiences within large families. The quality of attachment learnt in the family forms a model for future attachments (Lieberman, 1979). Bowlby (1953) argues that the experiences a child encounters with caregivers in infanthood structure the its internal working models and that the lifelong sustainability of attachment patterns is provided by the mental representations gained in the first years of one's life (Bowlby, 1953).
In recent years, it has been argued that the three styles of attachment Bowlby and Ainsworth put forward for childhood could be valid for adulthood as well (Gallo, Smith, & Ruiz, 2003). Based on the attachment principles of Bowlby et al., three forms of attachment were developed as a result of the studies conducted on the process of attachment in children and emotional relationships; secure, anxious-ambivalent and avoidant (Tutarel, 2006).
Apart from this three-category model of attachment, Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991) expanded this typology beyond this three-category model of attachment and developed a new model titled the Four-Category Model of Attachment, which included the attachment styles of secure, preoccupied, fearful and dismissing (Backstrom, & Holmes, 2001). The transmission of attachment from grandparents to parents and then to children might involve social and genetic influence. Social influence involves the direct influence of grandparent to grandchild or an indirect influence of the grandparent to parent by means of social support and social learning. On the other hand, genetic influence defines the biological transmission through genes (Sabatier, & Lannegrand-Willems, 2005).
In a study conducted by Donnellan et al. (2008), the best fitting univariate behavioral genetic models indicated that 45% of the variance in attachment-related anxiety and 39% of the variance in attachment-related avoidance was heritable. The view is that discrepancies are common during the initial stages of scientific inquiry and point to the need for additional research (Donnellan, Burt, Levendosky & Klump, 2008). Crawford et al. (2007) found that the majority of the association between anxiety and dimensions of personality disorders characterizing emotional dysregulation was genetically mediated, a finding quite consistent with our results for neuroticism and anxiety (Crawford, Livesley, Jang, Shaver, Cohen, & Ganiban, 2007). Thus, there is an impressive degree of consistency across the two studies in terms of the attachment-related anxiety findings. This finding of substantial nonshared environmental effects on adult attachment raises questions as to the specific nature of the nonshared influences.
Within this context, when thean analysis of the family tree is analyzed,shows the similarity within a family is determined to be most noticeable. The similarity among family members causes similarity of experience and characteristics (Lieberman, 1979). Attachment theorists developed a new perspective for studies on attachment theory by proving the fact that there is a similarity between attachment forms in childhood and adulthood by conducting several researches studies (Svanberg, 1989). The A study conducted by Kroonenberg et al. (1997) showed that the probability of having children with secure attachment was three or four times higher in adults with secure attachment (Kroonenberg, Van Dam, Van Ijzendoorn, & Mooijaart, 1997). As Greg (2005) statesd, Bowlby and Ainsworth explained the attachment system by means of experimental studies. The researches studies managed to clarifiedy the significance of lifelong attachment and the mother figure as the first relationship of a baby as well as the attachment of the mother transmitted from her own childhood (Greg, 2005).
This is a descriptive study aimed at proving transgenerational attachment by determining the relationship between the adult attachment patterns of mothers and grandmothers as well as the relationship between the adult attachment patterns of mothers and maternal attachment.
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