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Dismissing Children’s Perceptions of Their Emotional Experience and Parental Care: Preliminary Evidence of Positive Bias

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Abstract

The tendency to perceive caregivers in highly positive terms and to perceive the self as strong and problem-free are two facets of the positive bias characteristic of a dismissing attachment classification in adulthood. However, this link has not yet been examined in children. We evaluated the association between dismissing attachment and positive bias in school-aged children’s reports of their own emotional experience and their parental care, hypothesizing that: (1) compared to secure children, dismissing children would underreport their subjective distress relative to physiological indicators of distress, and (2) dismissing children would report that their parents were warmer/more caring than would secure children. Ninety-seven children between the ages of 8 and 12 completed the Child Attachment Interview, reports of maternal and paternal care, and a psychophysiological threat paradigm. Compared to secure children, dismissing children reported less distress than their startle responses during threat would suggest. In other words, dismissing children showed a greater divergence between subjective and physiological emotional response. Dismissing children rated their parents as warmer and more caring as compared to secure children’s ratings. Results provide support for the association between dismissing attachment and inflated positivity on child-report measures of parental care and emotional experience. Implications of the study’s findings for attachment theory are discussed.

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Notes

  1. Although termed avoidant attachment in infancy, this attachment pattern is termed “dismissing” in middle childhood and beyond.

  2. Patrick et al. [57] also examined the links between adult attachment and reports of parental care among individuals with borderline personality disorder, but did not examine dismissing attachment.

  3. In recent years some (e.g., [59]) have argued that attachment classifications are distributed continuously and are therefore best represented as dimensional constructs, although most attachment research has focused on categories as the unit of analysis. Therefore, as an additional, conservative check on our findings, we retested our hypotheses using CAI scale scores associated with dismissing attachment (idealization and dismissal). We found that both attachment dismissal and idealization are associated with greater reports of maternal and paternal warmth/care. Further, we found that attachment dismissal (but not idealization) is associated with subjective-physiological divergence, such that greater dismissal on the CAI is associated with greater physiological response relative to subjective response. Readers interested in learning more about these supplemental continuous analyses are encouraged to contact the corresponding author for additional information.

  4. The studies described in this section measure attachment via self-reported attachment style (e.g., the Experiences in Close Relationships Scale [30])—in this research tradition, the dismissing style is characterized by high levels of self-reported attachment avoidance, and therefore the terminology is different (e.g., highly avoidant versus dismissing).

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Center for Mental Health Promotion awarded to the first author. Special thanks are due to Nicki Hunter, Eric Langlois, Donald F. Nathanson, and Erika McCarty for their assistance with data processing, as well as all of the children and families who participated in this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Pomona College, 647 N. College Way, Claremont, CA, 91711, USA

    Jessica L. Borelli

  2. Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA

    Daryn H. David

  3. Yale University Child Study Center, New Haven, CT, USA

    Michael J. Crowley & Linda C. Mayes

  4. Claremont Graduate University, Claremont, CA, USA

    Jonathan E. Snavely

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  1. Jessica L. Borelli
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Correspondence to Jessica L. Borelli.

 

 

Appendix Parental bonding instrument for children (PBI-C)
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Borelli, J.L., David, D.H., Crowley, M.J. et al. Dismissing Children’s Perceptions of Their Emotional Experience and Parental Care: Preliminary Evidence of Positive Bias. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev 44, 70–88 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-012-0310-5

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