Perez, Alejandra; Steele, Miriam; Fonagy, Peter; Fearon, Pasco; Segal, Francesca; Steele, Howard; (2025) Predictions of adolescents’ responses to the Youth Self-Report from parental attachment interviews collected during pregnancy: a 17-year longitudinal study. Attachment & Human Development 10.1080/14616734.2024.2448916. (In press).

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Abstract

This study investigated the influence of parents’ Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) responses prior to the birth of a first child, on self-reported mental health symptoms of the first-born child in mid-adolescence. The sample comprised 51 first-born children aged 16 years, their mothers and fathers from a low-risk community urban sample, White, British and 70% middle class. Mothers’ responses to the AAI were the strongest predictor of their adolescent children’s self-reported mental health symptoms. Children’s infant-mother or infant-father attachment patterns were not predictive of these 16-year outcomes, but mothers’ insecure (primarily dismissing) attachment representations predicted children’s externalizing, aggressive, and delinquent difficulties (though not internalizing difficulties) at 16 years. If one or both parents were autonomous-secure in their response to the AAI then their adolescent children reported significantly fewer mental health problems. Discussion focuses on thepredictive validity of the Adult Attachment Interview, Mary Main’s legacy, and possible meanings (and limitations) of the results.

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