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Earned- and continuous-security in adult attachment: Relation to depressive symptomatology and parenting style

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2008

Jane L. Pearson ,
Deborah A. Cohn ,
Philip A. Cowan  and
Carolyn Pape Cowan
Jane L. Pearson*
Affiliation:
National Institute of Mental Health
Deborah A. Cohn
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
Philip A. Cowan
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
Carolyn Pape Cowan
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Jane L. Pearson, NIMH, Room 18-105, 5600 Fishers Lane, Rockville, MD 20857.
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Abstract

The secure working model classification of adult attachment, as derived from Main and Goldwyn's (in press) Adult Attachment Interview scoring system, was considered in terms of earned-security and continuous-security. Earned-security was a classification given to adults who described difficult, early relationships with parents, but who also had current secure working models as indicated by high coherency scores; continuous-security referred to a classification in which individuals described secure early attachment relationship with parents and current secure working models. Working models of attachment were classified as earned-secure, continuous-secure, or insecure in a sample of 40 parents of preschool children. Comparisons among the classifications were conducted on a measure of depressive symptoms and two sets of ratings of observed parenting styles. Adults with earned-secure classifications had comparable depressive symptomatology to insecures, with 30% of the insecures, 40% of the earned-secures, and only 10% of the continuous-secures having scores exceeding the clinical cut-off. The rate of depressive symptomatology in the earned-secure group suggests that reconstructions of past difficulties may remain emotional liabilities despite a current secure working model. With regard to parenting styles with their preschoolers, the behavior of earned-secure parents was comparable to that of the continuous-secures. This refinement in conceptualizing secure working models suggests ways for understanding variation in pathways to competent parenting as well as a possible perspective on how adults' adverse early experiences may continue to place them and their children at risk.

Type
Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , Spring 1994 , pp. 359 - 373
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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