A New Study Found That Toddlers With Insecure Attachment To Their Moms Are More Likely To Inaccurately Gauge The Trustworthiness Of Strangers In Teenhood
Social development starts during infancy. Just after birth, newborns begin to process facial expressions and gestures first. Then, children only continue to gather and internalize social information from their parents as they grow.
And these actions and emotions that children learn through their parents are crucial to the development of healthy relationships later in life.
A new study conducted by the University of Illinois underpins this fact and actually found that toddlers who endured insecure attachment to their mothers are more likely to place too much trust in strangers during teenhood.
Xiaomei Li, the study’s lead author, described the team’s mission in conducting this study.
“The idea is to understand whether early attachment relationships with mothers have a longitudinal, predictive association with how adolescents process cues related to trustworthiness– both at the behavioral level and the brain level,” Li said.
Ten years ago, one hundred and twenty-eight toddlers and their mothers participated in a preliminary data collection round.
During the visit, the researchers evaluated the attachment styles of each toddler-parent pair after observing their interactions.
After the children entered early adolescence, they returned for a second round of data collection.
The researchers sought to understand how the children gauged strangers’ trustworthiness without their parents.
Alena Ozerova – stock.adobe.com
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The team placed each child in an MRI scanner to measure brain activity. Then, the children were presented with various pictures of faces that they rated on a trustworthiness scale of one to five.
For context, the researchers told the children that for this “trustworthiness” exercise, they should identify people they would likely ask for help in a new city.
The various facial images were all emotionally-neutral model photos that showed contrasting levels of trustworthiness based on preliminary study analysis.
The researchers found that children who were insecurely attached to their parents as toddlers were less likely to identify “low-trustworthiness” faces correctly. On the other hand, toddlers who experienced secure attachment styles with their parents were much more able to locate untrustworthy cues.
“We were able to see how early relationship dynamics during toddlerhood– a key period for social-emotional development– predicted adolescent functioning, even at the level of the brain,” Li explained.
The researchers also believe that this inaccurate identification of trustworthiness is an emotional defense mechanism.
“Because children with an insecure attachment have experienced inconsistent and unreliable care when they are young, they may now choose to avoid negative social cues as a defense mechanism to protect themselves. The lack of brain activation supports this explanation, suggesting that insecure adolescents are not processing untrustworthy cues,” Li said.
To avoid this potentially dangerous outcome, the researchers suggest that parents can reinforce secure attachment by accepting and validating their child’s negative emotions. By providing support and walking your child through their emotional responses, they will internalize that negative emotions are not “bad” emotions.
“It is okay for children to be upset, and these are important, teachable moments when parents can help children deal with their emotions in an age-appropriate way. By doing so, children will be better prepared to engage in whatever comes their way later on,” said Nancy McElwain, professor and co-author of the study.
To read the complete scientific findings, visit the link here.
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