Tags

Type your tag names separated by a space and hit enter

Mothers' mental representations and their relationship to mother-infant attachment.
Bull Menninger Clin. 1991 Fall; 55(4):454-69.BM

Abstract

The association between the constructs of mental representation posited by object relations theory and attachment theory was studied through an assessment of adolescent mothers' mental representations and their infants' security of attachment. Forty-two pregnant adolescents were given the Adult Attachment Interview (George, Kaplan, & Main, 1985) to assess their modes of attachment, and the Krohn Object Representation Scale for Dreams (Krohn & Mayman, 1974) to assess object-representations. When the 42 infants were 15 months old, they were videotaped in the Strange Situation (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978) with their mothers. Subjects were primarily low-income African-American and Hispanic mothers and infants. As measured by the significant association between classifications on the Adult Attachment Interview and the Krohn scale (p less than .001), the adolescents' attachment and object-representations were highly related. Both attachment and object relations were also significantly related to infant attachment (p less than .001 and p less than .01, respectively). Results suggest that the concepts of mental representation proposed by object relations theory and attachment theory overlap and that mothers' mental representations have heuristic value in predicting mother-infant attachment.

Authors+Show Affiliations

Levine LV
City College of City University of New York, NY.
Tuber SB
No affiliation info available
Slade A
No affiliation info available
Ward MJ
No affiliation info available

MeSH

AdolescentFemaleHumansIndividuationInfantMother-Child RelationsObject AttachmentPersonality DevelopmentPregnancyPregnancy in AdolescenceSelf Concept

Pub Type(s)

Journal Article
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.

Language

eng

PubMed ID

1773209

Citation

Levine, L V., et al. "Mothers' Mental Representations and Their Relationship to Mother-infant Attachment." Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, vol. 55, no. 4, 1991, pp. 454-69.
Levine LV, Tuber SB, Slade A, et al. Mothers' mental representations and their relationship to mother-infant attachment. Bull Menninger Clin. 1991;55(4):454-69.
Levine, L. V., Tuber, S. B., Slade, A., & Ward, M. J. (1991). Mothers' mental representations and their relationship to mother-infant attachment. Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, 55(4), 454-69.
Levine LV, et al. Mothers' Mental Representations and Their Relationship to Mother-infant Attachment. Bull Menninger Clin. 1991;55(4):454-69. PubMed PMID: 1773209.
* Article titles in AMA citation format should be in sentence-case
TY - JOUR T1 - Mothers' mental representations and their relationship to mother-infant attachment. AU - Levine,L V, AU - Tuber,S B, AU - Slade,A, AU - Ward,M J, PY - 1991/1/1/pubmed PY - 1991/1/1/medline PY - 1991/1/1/entrez SP - 454 EP - 69 JF - Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic JO - Bull Menninger Clin VL - 55 IS - 4 N2 - The association between the constructs of mental representation posited by object relations theory and attachment theory was studied through an assessment of adolescent mothers' mental representations and their infants' security of attachment. Forty-two pregnant adolescents were given the Adult Attachment Interview (George, Kaplan, & Main, 1985) to assess their modes of attachment, and the Krohn Object Representation Scale for Dreams (Krohn & Mayman, 1974) to assess object-representations. When the 42 infants were 15 months old, they were videotaped in the Strange Situation (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978) with their mothers. Subjects were primarily low-income African-American and Hispanic mothers and infants. As measured by the significant association between classifications on the Adult Attachment Interview and the Krohn scale (p less than .001), the adolescents' attachment and object-representations were highly related. Both attachment and object relations were also significantly related to infant attachment (p less than .001 and p less than .01, respectively). Results suggest that the concepts of mental representation proposed by object relations theory and attachment theory overlap and that mothers' mental representations have heuristic value in predicting mother-infant attachment. SN - 0025-9284 UR - https://www.unboundmedicine.com/medline/citation/1773209/Mothers'_mental_representations_and_their_relationship_to_mother_infant_attachment_ DB - PRIME DP - Unbound Medicine ER -