Contemporary psychology, Vol. 16 No. 1, 2013.
Original scientific paper
Children's attachment at age five to seven and personality traits of mothers
Lara Cakić
; Učiteljski fakultet Sveučilišta J.J. Strossmayera, Osijek, Hrvatska
Ljubica Marjanovič-Umek
; Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Ljubljani, Ljubljana, Slovenija
Abstract
The goal of this research was to test the difference between mothers of securely and mothers of insecurely attached children with regard to personality traits. The sample consisted of 80 children aged five to seven and their mothers. Instruments used in the research were: Technique for attachment evaluation in children MCAST (The
Manchester Child Attachment Story Task, by Green, Stanley and Goldwyn, 2000) and Revised NEO Personality Inventory (Costa and McCrae, 2005). The MCAST is a halfstructured doll play technique which provides assessment of attachment and consist of five stories that child have to complete.
As far as personality traits are concerned, mothers of secure attached children are higher on extraversion and agreeableness scales in comparison to mothers of insecurely attached children. Mothers of securely attached children have significantly higher scores than mothers of insecurely attached children on the extraversion scale
facets (warmth, gregariousness, assertiveness, activity). On agreeableness scale facets (modesty and tender-mindedness), mothers of securely attached children have significantly
higher scores than mothers of insecurely attached children. In view of other assessed personality traits of the Big five model (neuroticism, openness and conscientiousness) we didn’t find statistically significant differences between mothers of securely and mothers of insecurely attached children.
Keywords
attachment; preschoolers; mothers; personality traits; Big five model
Hrčak ID:
111622
URI
Publication date:
15.7.2013.
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