Clinical Psychology, Vol. 8 No. 1, 2015.
Original scientific paper
The structure of metaemotions of the mothers of securely and the mothers of insecurely attached children at the age of five to seven
Lara Cakić
; J.J. Strossmayer University, Osijek, Croatia
Abstract
The goal of this research is to test the difference between the mothers of securely attached and the mothers of insecurely attached children aged 5 to 7 regarding the feeling of personal sadness and intense anger as well as the level of awareness of mother’s personal and child’s emotions of sadness, intense anger, and the handling of mothers. Instruments used in this research are: Technique for attachment evaluation in children MCAST (The Manchester Child Attachment Story Task, by Green, Stanley and Goldwyn, 2000), and the questionnaire The Structure of Parental Metaemotions (Brajša-Žganec, 2002). The MCAST is a half-structured doll play technique which provides assessment of attachment and consist of five stories that the child needs to complete. The Structure of Parental Metaemotions questionnaire is an adjusted metaemotion
interview (Gottman, Katz and Hooven, 1996), and consists of items related to sadness and anger.
Regarding the personal sadness and intense anger as well as level of awareness of personal and child’s emotions of sadness, intense anger, and the handling of the child’s emotions we didn’t find statistically significant differences between mothers
of securely and mothers of insecurely attached children. On a sample involving girls, there is a difference between the mothers of securely and the mothers of insecurely attached girls, according to the scale evaluation of personal sadness and intense anger. The mothers of securely attached girls have significantly higher scores compared to the mothers of insecurely attached girls. Considering the lack of research on attachment in preschool children in our culture, it would be necessary to continue the research on the characteristics of caregivers and children connected to the development of attachment.
This would enable the triage of caregivers who may be open to risk of developing insecure attachment with their children. The triage would create the possibility of inclusion into early intervention.
Keywords
attachment; preschoolers; mother’s meta-emotions
Hrčak ID:
169582
URI
Publication date:
14.7.2015.
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