Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T22:57:15.248Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Patterns of individual adaptation across childhood

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2009

Joan Urban ,
Elizabeth Carlson ,
Byron Egeland  and
L. Alan Sroufe
Joan Urban
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
Elizabeth Carlson
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
Byron Egeland
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
L. Alan Sroufe*
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
*
Address reprint requests to: L. Alan Sroufe, Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, 51 East River Road, Minneapolis, MN 55455.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Continuity in individual patterns of adaptation and maladaptation was examined across the years from infancy to preadolescence. Forty-seven preadolescent subjects from a 15-year longitudinal study of children at risk for developmental problems participated. Subjects were intensively observed in a 4-week summer daycamp at age 10. Children were then rated on scales of agency, social skill, dependency, positive and negative affect, and ranked on emotional health. In addition, Q-sorts were performed to obtain an overall description of the child's personality, and observations were made of child-adult interactions. Significant differences were found between secure and insecure attachment groups on molar measures of adaptation including social competence and ego resiliency. Children with anxious histories were also rated higher on dependency and were found to be more frequently involved in interactions with adults than children with secure histories. In addition, differences were found in the patterns of adaptation exhibited by children with the two types of anxious attachment history. Children with resistant histories were found to be more often the recipients of adult-initiated contact, specifically support and nurturance, than were children with avoidant attachment histories. Comparison of overall personality style through correlations of composite counselor Q-sorts identified children with secure and resistant attachment histories as most like other children with the same attachment history. Results for avoidant children did not achieve significance. Patterns of contemporary child behavior revealed through counselor Q-sorts were also found to be related to theoretically derived predictions from patterns observed in infancy.

Type
Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 3 , Issue 4 , October 1991 , pp. 445 - 460
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1991

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ainsworth, M., Blehar, M., Waters, E., & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of attachment: A psychological study of the Strange Situation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Block, J. (1961). The Q-sort method in personality, assessment and psychiatry research. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Block, J. (1987, 04). Longitudinal antecedents of ego-control and ego-resiliency in late adolescence. Paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Baltimore, MD.Google Scholar
Block, J. H., & Block, J. (1980). The role of ego-control and ego-resiliency in the organization of behavior. In Collins, W. A. (Ed.), Minnesota symposia on child psychology (Vol. 13, pp. 39–101). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Bowlby, J. (1969/1982). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Attachment. New York: Basic.Google Scholar
Bowlby, J. (1973). Attachment and loss: Vol. 2. Separation. New York: Basic.Google Scholar
Bowlby, J. (1980). Attachment and loss: Vol. 3. Loss, sadness and depression. New York: Basic.Google Scholar
Egeland, B., & Brunnquell, D. (1979). An at-risk approach to the study of child abuse: Some preliminary findings. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 18, 219–235.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Egeland, B., Kalkoske, M., Gottesman, N., & Erickson, M. (1990). Preschool behavior problems: Stability and factors accounting for change. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 31, 891–909.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Egeland, B., & Sroufe, L. A. (1981). Developmental sequelae of maltreatment in infancy. In Cicchetti, D. & Rizley, R. (Eds.), New directions in child development: Developmental approaches to child maltreatment (pp. 77–92). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Elicker, J., Englund, M., & Sroufe, L. A. (in press). Predicting peer competence and peer relationships in childhood from early parent-child relationships. In Parke, R. & Ladd, G. (Eds.), Family-peer relationships: Modes of linkage. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Eron, L. D., & Huesmann, L. R. (1990). The stability of aggressive behavior —even into the third generation. In Lewis, M. & Miller, S. M. (Eds.), Handbook of developmental psychopathology (pp. 147–156). New York: Plenum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freud, A. (1965). The concept of developmental lines. Psychoanalytic study of the child, 18, 245–265.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gove, R. (1982). Patterns and organizations of behavior and affect expression during the second year of life. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Minnesota.Google Scholar
Hartmann, D. P. (1977). Considerations in the choice of interobserver reliability estimates. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 10, 103–116.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kagan, J. (1971). Change and continuity in infancy New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Kobak, R. R., & Sceery, A. (1988). Attachment in late adolescence: Working models, affect regulation, and representations of self and others. Child Development, 59, 135–146.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Main, M., & Weston, D. (1981). The quality of the toddler's relationship to mother and father: Related to conflict behavior and the readiness to establish new relationships. Child Development, 52, 932–940.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Matas, L., Arend, R., & Sroufe, L. A. (1978). Continuity of adaptation in the second year of life: The relationship between quality of attachment and later competence. Child Development, 49, 547–556.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCord, J. (1988). Parental behavior in the cycle of aggression. Psychiatry, 51, 14–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Motti, E. (1986). Patterns of behaviors of preschool teachers with children of varying developmental histories. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Minnesota.Google Scholar
Olweus, D. (1980). Bullying among school boys. In Barnen, R. (Ed.), Children and violence. Stockholm: Akademic Literatur.Google Scholar
Sroufe, L. A. (1983). Infant-caregiver attachment and patterns of adaptation in preschool: The roots of maladaptation and competence. In Perlmutter, M. (Ed.), Minnesota symposia on child psychology (Vol. 16, pp. 41–83). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Sroufe, L. A. (1989). Pathways to adaptation and maladaptation: Psychopathology as developmental deviation. In Cicchetti, D. (Ed.), Rochester Symposia on Developmental Psychopathology (Vol. 1, pp. 13–40). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Sroufe, L. A. (1990). An organizational perspective on the self. In Cicchetti, D. & Beeghly, M. (Eds.), The self in transition: Infancy to childhood (pp. 281–307). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sroufe, L. A., Egeland, B., & Kreutzer, T. (1990). The fate of early experience following developmental change: Longitudinal approaches to individual adaptation in childhood. Child Development, 61, 1363–1373.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sroufe, L. A., & Fleeson, J. (1986). Attachment and the construction of relationships. In Hartup, W. & Rubin, Z. (Eds.), Relationships and development (pp. 51–72). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Sroufe, L. A., Fox, N., & Pancake, V. (1983). Attachment and dependency in developmental perspective. Child Development, 54, 1615–1627.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sroufe, L. A., & Jacobvitz, D. (1989). Diverging path-ways, developmental transformations, multiple etiologies and the problem of continuity in development. Human Development, 32, 96–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sroufe, L. A., Shulman, S., & Carlson, E. (in press). The longitudinal study of individuals and relationships from infancy to adolescence. In Funder, D., Parke, R., Tomlinson-Keasey, C., & Widaman, K. (Eds.), Lives through time.Google Scholar
Tolstoy, L. (1980). Anna Karennina. (Constance Garnett, Trans.). New York: The Modern Library.Google Scholar
Troy, M., & Sroufe, L. A. (1987). Victimization among preschoolers: The role of attachment relationship history. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 26, 166–172.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wechsler, D. (1949). Manual for the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. San Antonio, TX: The Psychological Corporation.Google Scholar
Werner, H. (1957). The concept of development from a comparative and organismic point of view. In Harris, D. B. (Ed.), The concept of development: An issue in the study of human behavior (pp. 125–148). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar