Intimate Partner Violence and Children's Attachment Representations During Middle Childhood

• Published date: 01 June 2017
• Author: W. Roger Mills‐Koonce,Martha J. Cox,Geoffrey L. Brown,Hanna C. Gustafsson,
• Date: 01 June 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12388

H C. G Oregon Health and Science University

G L. B University of Georgia∗

W. R M-K The University of North Carolina at Greensboro∗∗

M J. C University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill∗∗∗

T F L P K I

Intimate Partner Violence and Children’s

Attachment Representations During Middle

Childhood

Despite long-standing hypotheses that inti-

mate partner violence (IPV) may undermine

children’s ability to form secure attachment

representations, few studies have empirically

investigated this association. Particularly

lacking is research that examines IPV and

attachment during middle childhood, a time

when the way that children understand, repre-

sent, and process the behavior of others becomes

particularly important. Using data from a

Oregon Health and Science University,3181 SW Sam

Jackson Park Road, Multnomah Pavilion, Suite 1505,

Portland, OR 97239 (gustafha@ohsu.edu).

∗Human Development and Family Science, University of

Georgia, 205 Family Science Center, 403 Sanford Drive,

Athens, GA 30602.

∗∗Department of Human Development and Family Studies,

The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Stone

Building Room 165E, P.O.Box 26170, Greensboro, NC

27402-6170.

∗∗∗Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina

at Chapel Hill, Campus Box 3270, 215 Davie Hall, Chapel

Hill, NC 27599-3270.

Key Words: attachment, domestic violence, intimate partner

violence, Manchester Child Attachment Story Task, middle

childhood, parenting.

sample of African American children living in

rural, low-income communities (N=98), the

current study sought to address this gap by

examining the association between physical

IPV occurring early in children’s lives and

their attachment security during the rst grade.

Results indicate that, even after controlling

for child- and family-level covariates, physical

IPV was associated with a greater likelihood

of being rated insecurely attached. This effect

was above and beyond the inuence of maternal

parenting behaviors, demonstrating a unique

effect of physical IPV on children’s attachment

representations during middle childhood.

A large body of literature demonstrates that

the quality of children’s attachment to their

primary caregivers can have a lasting impact

on their development. Findings from several

meta-analytic reviews conrm what dozens of

individual studies have found: Children who

are insecurely attached have more difculty

with their peer relationships (Schneider, Atkin-

son, & Tardif, 2001) and are at a heightened

risk for developing internalizing (Groh, Rois-

man, van IJzendoorn, Bakermans-Kranenburg,

& Fearon, 2012) and externalizing (Fearon,

Journal of Marriage and Family 79 (June 2017): 865–878 865

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12388