Background lead and mercury exposures: Psychological and behavioral problems in children.

BACKGROUND: The potential harm from exposure to nonessential metals, particularly mercury (Hg) and lead (Pb), has been the focus of research for years. Initial interest focused on relatively high exposures; however, recent evidence suggests that even background exposures might have adverse consequences for child development. Identifying the extent of these consequences is now a priority. METHODS: We assessed blood Pb and Hg levels in a biracial sample of 9-11 year-old children (N = 203). Neurodevelopment and psychological functioning assessments included hostility, disruptive behaviors, emotion regulation, and autism spectrum disorder behaviors. Parasympathetic (vagal) responses to acute stress were indexed by heart rate variability (HRV) at rest and during stress. RESULTS: With increasing Pb levels, children exhibit higher levels of hostile distrust and oppositional defiant behaviors, were more dissatisfied and uncertain about their emotions, and had difficulties with communication. These significant associations were found within a range of blood Pb levels from 0.19 to 3.25µg/dL, well below the "reference value" for children of >5µg/dL. Vagal reactivity interacted with Hg such that increasing Hg was associated with increasing autism spectrum behaviors for those children with sustained vagal tone during acute stress. CONCLUSIONS: This study is the first to demonstrate an association between very low-level Pb exposure and fundamental psychological mechanisms that might explain prior associations with more complex outcomes such as delinquency. Analyses of vagal reactivity yielded entirely novel associations suggesting that Hg may increase autism spectrum behaviors in children with sustained vagal tone during acute stress. The novelty of these later findings requires additional research for confirmation and the cross-sectional nature of the data caution against assumptions of causality without further research.

Attachment-related biases in adolescents' memory.

Attachment theorists propose that individuals' internal working models influence their social information processing. This study explored links between attachment representations and social information processing by examining adolescents' (n = 189; Mage  = 16.5 years) attachment-related memory biases. Participants completed laboratory tasks assessing memory for (a) emotionally salient childhood events, (b) adjectives describing their parents, and (c) generalized parent-related characteristics not specific to their own parents. As expected, dismissing attachment (assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview) was linked across tasks to a deactivating strategy in which memory for emotional childhood events and attachment-relevant stimuli was reduced. In contrast, evidence that preoccupied attachment was linked to a hyperactivating strategy in which memory was heightened emerged only in relation to emotional childhood events.

The development of negative reactivity in irritable newborns as a function of attachment.

This longitudinal study builds on existing research exploring the developmental course of infants' negative reactivity to frustration in a sample of 84 irritable infants. We investigated whether infants' negative reactivity to frustration differed during the first year as a function of infant attachment classification. Various elements of the designs of previous studies investigating negative reactivity and attachment preclude the strong conclusion that negative reactivity develops differently as a function of attachment. Thus, we utilized the same observational assessment of infant negative reactivity, conducted without parental involvement, at 5 and 12 months. One proposition, based in attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969/1982; Cassidy, 1994), is that relative to secure infants, insecure-avoidant infants come to minimize their negative emotional reactions, whereas insecure-ambivalent infants come to maximize their negative emotional reactions. As expected, we found that at 5 months, attachment groups did not differ in reactivity, but at 12 months, insecure-avoidant infants were the least reactive, followed by secure infants, and insecure-ambivalent infants were the most reactive. Results are discussed in terms of conceptualizing the development of emotion regulation and their implications for future research.

Tipping points in adolescent adjustment: predicting social functioning from adolescents' conflict with parents and friends.

Despite widespread interest in examining the role of conflict for adolescent development, researchers only rarely have examined adolescents' experiences of conflict across relationships. The present study examined how adolescents' experiences of conflict with parents and friends were linked to their social functioning. Adolescents (n = 189) and their mothers and fathers participated in semistructured discussions about areas of parent-adolescent conflict in the laboratory. In addition, adolescents reported about conflict in their best friendships, and peers reported about adolescents' social acceptance and behavior in social settings. Parent-adolescent conflict was associated with peer-reported aggression and delinquency, and friendship conflict was associated with delinquency and prosocial behavior. In addition, significant Parent-Adolescent Conflict × Friend-Adolescent Conflict interactions revealed that parent-adolescent conflict was associated with poor social functioning only when conflict with best friends was also high. The findings suggest that consideration of conflict across relationships may yield insight into the specific contexts in which conflict is associated with negative outcomes for adolescents.

Attachment-related differences in perceptions of an initial peer interaction emerge over time: evidence of reconstructive memory processes in adolescents.

This study examined whether attachment, assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI; George, Kaplan, & Main, 1996) was linked to how adolescents reconstructed their memory for an initial interaction with an unfamiliar peer. Adolescents (N = 189, 62% female) completed a 10-min laboratory task with a student whom they did not know. Immediately following this task, adolescents rated their perceptions of the interaction. Adolescents completed the same perception measure 2 weeks later. Although adolescents classified as secure and insecure on the AAI did not differ in how they perceived unfamiliar peers initially, attachment-related differences emerged over time. Insecure adolescents remembered the interactions as less positive and more negative and also reported being treated with greater hostility than they had initially reported 2 weeks earlier. In contrast, secure adolescents' memories for the negative aspects of the interaction and for hostile treatment remained stable, although, like insecure adolescents, they remembered the conflicts as being less positive than initially reported.

Links between attachment and social information processing: examination of intergenerational processes.

This chapter describes theory and research on intergenerational connections between parents' attachment and children's social information processing, as well as between parents' social information processing and children's attachment. The chapter begins with a discussion of attachment theorists' early insights into the role that social information processing plays in attachment processes. Next, current theory about the mechanisms through which cross-generational links between attachment and social information processing might emerge is presented. The central proposition is that the quality of attachment and/or the social information processing of the parent contributes to the quality of attachment and/or social information processing in the child, and these links emerge through mediating processes related to social learning, open communication, gate-keeping, emotion regulation, and joint attention. A comprehensive review of the literature is then presented. The chapter ends with the presentation of a current theoretical perspective and suggestions for future empirical and clinical endeavors.

Reporter discrepancies among parents, adolescents, and peers: adolescent attachment and informant depressive symptoms as explanatory factors.

The issue of informant discrepancies about child and adolescent functioning is an important concern for clinicians, developmental psychologists, and others who must consider ways of handling discrepant reports of information, but reasons for discrepancies in reports have been poorly understood. Adolescent attachment and informant depressive symptoms were examined as 2 explanations for absolute and directional discrepancies about adolescent symptoms, relationships, and social behavior in a sample of 189 eleventh-grade students (mean age=16.5 years). Adolescent attachment predicted absolute discrepancies, with greater attachment coherence associated with fewer discrepancies in reports of adolescent depressive symptoms, parent-adolescent conflict, and adolescent externalizing behavior. Parents' but not adolescents' depressive symptoms sometimes predicted absolute discrepancies. Mothers' depressive symptoms and adolescent attachment predicted the direction of discrepancies for mother-peer reports only.

Attachment and the processing of social information across the life span: theory and evidence.

Researchers have used J. Bowlby's (1969/1982, 1973, 1980, 1988) attachment theory frequently as a basis for examining whether experiences in close personal relationships relate to the processing of social information across childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. We present an integrative life-span-encompassing theoretical model to explain the patterns of results that have emerged from these studies. The central proposition is that individuals who possess secure experience-based internal working models of attachment will process--in a relatively open manner--a broad range of positive and negative attachment-relevant social information. Moreover, secure individuals will draw on their positive attachment-related knowledge to process this information in a positively biased schematic way. In contrast, individuals who possess insecure internal working models of attachment will process attachment-relevant social information in one of two ways, depending on whether the information could cause the individual psychological pain. If processing the information is likely to lead to psychological pain, insecure individuals will defensively exclude this information from further processing. If, however, the information is unlikely to lead to psychological pain, then insecure individuals will process this information in a negatively biased schematic fashion that is congruent with their negative attachment-related experiences. In a comprehensive literature review, we describe studies that illustrate these patterns of attachment-related information processing from childhood to adulthood. This review focuses on studies that have examined specific components (e.g., attention and memory) and broader aspects (e.g., attributions) of social information processing. We also provide general conclusions and suggestions for future research.

Do adolescents and parents reconstruct memories about their conflict as a function of adolescent attachment?

This study examined whether 17-year-old adolescents (n=189) and their parents reconstructed their memory for an adolescent-parent laboratory conflict over a 6-week period as a function of adolescent attachment organization. It also compared participants' perceptions of conflict over time to observational ratings of the conflict to further characterize the nature of the attachment-related memory biases that emerged. Secure adolescents reconstructed interactions with each parent more favorably over time, whereas insecure adolescents showed less favorable reconstructive memory. Likewise, mothers of secure girls reconstructed conflicts more favorably over time, whereas mothers of insecure boys showed less favorable reconstructive memory. Participant ratings were associated with observational ratings in theoretically consistent ways. Contrary to expectations, fathers showed no attachment-related memory biases.

Perceptions of secure base provision within the family.

The present study examined three sets of questions about secure base provision in the context of the family, including (1) relations between inter-parental perceptions of secure base provision and parents' adult romantic attachment and marital satisfaction, (2) interrelations among family members' perception of secure base provision, and (3) links between both adolescents' and parents' perceptions of secure base provision and adolescent symptoms. Participants were 189 adolescents from two-parent families (mean age = 17 years; 118 girls) and their parents. We found partial support for theorized links between perceptions of spousal secure base provision and spousal romantic attachment, as well as full support for expected associations between secure base provision and marital satisfaction. Family members' perceptions of secure base provision were linked in theoretically expected ways: mothers' perceptions of her spouse as a secure base were positively related to their adolescents' perceptions of the mother as a secure base and the father as a secure base. Further, adolescents tended to agree with mothers about perceptions of the husband/father and with fathers about the wife/mother as a secure base. Finally, adolescents' perceptions of parents as a secure base were associated with lower adolescent internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Inter-parental perceptions of secure base provision were not linked to adolescent symptoms.

Attachment and peer relations in adolescence.

The aim of this investigation was to examine whether adolescent attachment representation (as assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview) is linked to the quality of adolescents' peer relations (as assessed using a standard battery of peer-report instruments tapping adolescents' social behaviors, peer victimization, social acceptance, and sociometric status). As expected, secure/autonomous adolescents were more likely than insecure/dismissing adolescents to be perceived as behaving prosocially, and less likely to be perceived as aggressive, shy-withdrawn, and victimized by peers. Other findings indicated that insecure/dismissing adolescents, compared to secure/autonomous adolescents, were less likely to be socially accepted by their peers. In addition, insecure/dismissing girls, compared to secure/autonomous girls, were more likely to be neglected; no attachment group differences emerged for boys, or for peer rejection.

Narrative assessment of attachment representations: links between secure base scripts and adolescent attachment.

We explored the notion that adolescents possess mental secure base scripts of attachment-related events and examined, for the first time, whether these scripts were linked to adolescent attachment security. Results indicated that adolescents possessed a general script for mother and for father, and that they drew upon these scripts across different contexts. Adolescents' scripts for mother and for father were related, but only the scripts for mother predicted unique variance in adolescents' scripts for nonspecific others. Moreover, greater attachment security (as measured by the Adult Attachment Interview; AAI) was linked to greater access to and knowledge of secure base scripts for mothers, fathers, and nonspecific others. Only mother scripts, however, predicted unique variance in adolescents' AAI coherence of mind scores. Adolescents' romantic-attachment avoidance and anxiety scores (as assessed using the Experiences in Close Relationship Inventory) were linked negatively to scripts for mothers and nonspecific others, respectively.