Mother-Child Attachment Partnership in Early Childhood

Dr. Germán E. Posada's (Ph.D.) current research focuses on the behavioral and representational development of parent-child secure base relationships during childhood and the relations between the quality of those relationships and characteristics of the context. His work includes the study of those issues from a cross-cultural perspective and the use of observational methodologies in naturalistic settings.Dr. Harriet S. Waters's (Ph.D.) current research focuses on applying basic research in cognitive psychology to problems in early social cognition. She has applied her knowledge of narrative organization and production to the problem of assessing individual differences in representations of early social experience. In addition, she has been studying parental socialization influences on children’s hypotheses about the workings of social relationships.Brian E. Vaughn is developmental scientist who has been involved with attachment research and scholarship for over four decades. He has been instrumental in providing validation data for several widely used measures of attachment (e.g., the Attachment Q-Sort) and has been actively involved in research demonstrating the validity and utility of the Attachment Script Assessment for adults and adolescents. He is currently pursuing research to identify the links between mental representations of attachment and both social engagement and executive function in early childhood.Elaine Reese is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. She received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Elaine conducts longitudinal studies of memory development and parent-child interactions. Her book for parents, Tell Me a Story: Sharing Stories to Enrich Your Child's World, was published by Oxford University Press in 2013.

• I. INTRODUCTION: THE CO-CONSTRUCTION OF MOTHER-CHILD ATTACHMENT RELATIONSHIPS IN EARLY CHILDHOODGerman E. Posada and Harriet S. Waters (Page 7) II. MEASURES: SECURE BASE BEHAVIOR, CO-CONSTRUCTION, AND ATTACHMENT SCRIPTSGerman E. Posada and Harriet S. Waters (Page 22) III. THE ORGANIZATION OF ATTACHMENT BEHAVIOR IN EARLY CHILDHOOD: LINKS WITH MATERNAL SENSITIVITY AND CHILD ATTACHMENT REPRESENTATIONSGerman E. Posada, Jill M. Trumbell, TIng Lu, and Garene Kaloustian (Page 35) IV. CO-CONSTRUCTIONS OF ATTACHMENT REPRESENTATIONS AND AFFECT-REGULATING COGNITIONS: THE ROLE OF MATERNAL ATTACHMENT SECURITYHarriet S. Waters, Michelle A. Steiner, Widaad Zaman, Adela Apetroaia, and Judith A. Crowell. (Page 60)V. MATERNAL SENSITIVITY AND CO-CONSTRUCTION SKILLS: CONCURRENT AND LONGITUDINAL ASSOCIATIONS WITH PRESCHOOLERS; SECURE BASE BEHAVIOR Ting Lu, German E. Posada, Jill M. Trumbell, and Laura Anaya (Page 74) VI. INTERGENERATIONAL TRANSMISSION OF SECURE BASE SCRIPT KNOWLEDGE: THE ROLE OF MATERNAL CO-CONSTRUCTION SKILLS Adela Apetroaia and Harriet S. Waters (Page 91) VII. MATERNAL SECURE BASE SCRIPT KNOWLEDGE AND JUDGEMENTS OF MOTHER-CHILD INTERACTIONSHarriet S. Waters, David M. Corcoran, and Theodore E. A. Waters (Page 106) VIII. CONCLUSION: CO-CONSTRUCTING A SECURE BASE PARTNERSHIP: MOTHER-CHILD INTERACTIONS, COMMUNICATION, AND SCRIPT REPRESENTATIONS German E. Posada and Harriet S. Waters (Page 121) APPENDICES (Page 135)ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (Page 153)COMMENTARIESTHE MOTHER-CHILD ATTACHMENT PARTNERSHIP IN EARLY CHILDHOOD: SECURE BASE BEHAVIORAL AND REPRESENTATIONAL PROCESSESBrian E. Vaughn (Page 154) ATTACHMENT AND MEMORY RESEARCH: REFLECTING ON A SHARED PAST AND A COLLABORATIVE FUTUREElaine Reese (Page 162) CONTRIBUTORS (Page 173) SUBJECT INDEX (Page 176)