Social Position, Early Deprivation and the Development of Attachment

Overview

Journal Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol

Specialties Psychiatry
Public Health
Social Sciences

Date 2008 Mar 18

PMID 18344050

Citations 17

Authors

Stephen Stansfeld

Jenny Head

Mel Bartley

Peter Fonagy

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

The effects of childhood social adversity on developing parent/child attachments may partially explain the effects of less advantaged childhood social position on adulthood mental health. Associations between social position, retrospectively recalled parental style and childhood emotional and physical deprivation and attachment were examined in 7,276 civil servants from the Whitehall II Study. Depressive symptoms were associated with insecure attachment style. Social position was not associated with attachment styles. However, fathers' social class was strongly associated with material and emotional deprivation. In turn, deprivation was associated with lower parental warmth. High parental warmth was associated with decreased risk of insecure attachment styles. Despite the methodological shortcomings of retrospective childhood data the results suggest material and emotional adversity influence the development of attachment through parental style, notably parental warmth.

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