The relationship of preterm infant-mother attachment to stranger sociability at 3 years

Abstract

This study tested the relationship between preterm infant-mother attachment patterns and sociability of 3-year-old children with an unfamiliar female adult. The subjects in the study (N=48) were part of a longitudinal investigation of the developmental sequelae of high-risk preterm birth. Results supported the study's major hypotheses that 3-year-olds' behaviors and affective states vary in accordance with the degree of a stranger's intrusiveness, and that security of attachment is related to stranger sociability. However, by age 3, the preterm risk status of these children was not strongly associated with differences in patterns of stranger sociability, nor were there reliable sociability differences between children with anxious-avoidant ("A") or anxious-resistant ("C") attachment relationships. In short, this study showed that patterns of children's behavior in the presence of a stranger were associated with their security of attachment as measured in the second year of life. Moreover, it was the quality of attachment--not early risk status--that reliably predicted sociability with a stranger.