- No, one study doesn’t upend the last few decades of understanding of emotional attachment.
The study simply says that ability to connect w friends is more predictive than observations they made of apparent attachment of parents.
This happens much later so of course it’s more predictive of the actual end effects - that’s when attachment styles actually show up for the first time. Kids grow up to be very adaptive toward their parents but when they get to the rest of society that’s when the failures of connection and the failed bids for attention show up.
A very resilient kid will do fine with friends even with a very bad attachment environment. A very sensitive kid or one with developmental problems will struggle in social environments.
by pedalpete
5 subcomments
- My first reaction was to refute this, but I think I've convinced myself this may be correct, assuming attachment styles are the right frame.
I've been painted with the Avoidant brush, and logically it makes sense, broken home, removed from mother, moved regularly changing schools once a year for 5 years.
However, my siblings are the opposite. We come from the same house, they didn't change schools as often as I did, which made me wonder how we could be so different.
But when looked through the lens of friendships forming the attachment style, it makes more sense. I changed schools more often than my siblings, and therefore had more friendship changes, and less ability for attachment.
by popalchemist
1 subcomments
- The science on parental influence is well documented. This research may be onto something new - an additional layer of influence. But the personality begins to be formed by extrinsic influences within months of being born. Which is to say, it precedes the stage at which you have the ability to make friends.
The relevant research is called "The Strange Situation" by Beebe. The research spanned decades with the same subjects. The universal predictor of adulthood outcomes (relationships, lifestyle, income, drug use, etc) was whether the mother was attentive and capable of attuning to the child.
by lordnacho
1 subcomments
- > But early friendship bonds played an even bigger part than maternal relationships in the ways people navigated adult friendships and romantic partnerships, accounting for 4 percent of the variance in adults’ romantic partner- and best friend-specific attachment anxiety, and 10 to 11 percent in their partner- and best friend-specific avoidance.
Are those numbers r-squared figures? Seems like there's a lot more variance to be explained?
- Didn't really have friends as a kid, probably explains why I prefer the cold glow of a computer.
- I've observed children who have had tremendous close friends in childhood but were unable to recreate that in adulthood. Sometimes it's easier to make friends when you're 5.
- Since the 60’s people have wanted to revise the nurture side of psychology to downplay the role of mothers, but the reality is as everyone has always known, it is the mothers. Sure, there’s also biology and trauma. But Iften the trauma is related to interaction with the parents. Also, biology is shared most of the time by the parent, so bipolar mothers tend to have bipolar children.
Anyway, people have mothers before they have friends. Our first relationships become a template for subsequent ones. I feel embarrassed for the authors and the field more generally that such an obvious fact is not obvious enough to prevent absurd claims. As with most things in our society, blame the 60’s and all that came from it.
- From the study abstract:
> Early levels of mother–child relationship quality predicted individual differences in general attachment anxiety and avoidance in adulthood, as well as adults’ relationship-specific attachment orientations in each of their close relationships, including with their mothers, fathers, romantic partners, and best friends (median R² = 3% for attachment anxiety and avoidance across relationship domains).[0]
Hmmm...
[0] https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-79270-001
by jamesalvarez
0 subcomment
- The Nautil.us article misrepresents the findings of the paper, suggesting that it said anything about a causal effect. The title 'Childhood Friends, Not Moms, Shape Attachment Styles Most' is completely inacurrate and not even hinted at by the study authors in the paper.
by kayodelycaon
0 subcomment
- I think it’s a bit more general than that because I didn’t have any “childhood friends”, just bullies who were never punished.
What I did have was a great number of excellent adults in my life. In many ways, they were more my peers than anyone my own age.
Their example and support made my parents instruction significantly more effective despite the serious challenges with my mental health that they didn’t know how to handle.
by makeitdouble
1 subcomments
- On the participants composition:
> 705 participants and their families over 3 decades, from the time participants were infants until they were approximately 30 years old (Mage = 28.6, SD = 1.2; 78.7% White, non-Hispanic, 53.6% female, 46.4% male).
It looks like an a fairly culturally homogeneous pannel, it would be interesting to also have a breakdown on religion (especially due to the communal effects) and income.
- Direct link to study abstract: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-79270-001
PDF: https://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2026-79270-001.pdf
by iambateman
1 subcomments
- They didn’t find any effect of fathers on attachment style and I’m confused…I’ve heard countless stories about how it’s hard for people to connect as adults because of how their dad was toward them.
by throwattached
1 subcomments
- In case this can be helpful to somebody else, I spent my ~twenties ignorant of what attachment styles were, while definitely exhibiting some very, very obvious attachment patterns. And I made a lot of mistakes, and made a lot of people close to me sad.
Reading the "Attached" book was a huge wake-up call. According to the questionnaire, for what it's worth, I was exhibiting ~100% avoidant behavior.
This led to therapy, and to a lot of atonement, and growth.
I just came here to say - if you have a minute, give it a read. And for fun, try the questionnaire:
https://archive.org/details/AttachementTheory/page/n37/mode/...
Best of luck
by shalmanese
1 subcomments
- We've known roughly this since The Nurture Assumption (1998). Where parents do have an impact is in being able to choose the social circles their children are immersed in.
- And moms are the gate keeps of their kids friends.
- The title is false, the study finds that moms have a large impact on attachment style
- There's a whole book on this called "Hold On To Your Kids." It feels a little hand-wavy, categorically dismissing all social media as evil, but the core message feels right: don't stop being a parent.
by reliablereason
0 subcomment
- Attachment Styles is a very low dimensional way of observing something that has very high dimensionally.
When people use this type of dimensionality reduction you get problematic outcomes.
This type of phenomena will always keep happening. The world is complex and perceptually high dimensional. We try to understand it(the world) using low dimensional concepts and when those low dimensional concepts have low validity issues arise.
by bonsai_spool
0 subcomment
- Here’s another report that speaks with the researchers directly
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-childhood-rel...
And the paper:
https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-79270-001
by CTDOCodebases
0 subcomment
- I think it just boils down to who did you experience strong emotion with and what are/were the outcomes of that relationship.
by webspinner
0 subcomment
- i probably spent more time at my friend's houses, than at my parents house when I was a kid!
- Potentially worrisome news for the pandemic-isolation cohort, with their outlier experience.
- In general your kids' friends are much more important to them in the long run than you are. You are always there, but their friends represent the society they will be sinking or swimming in. They turn away from you and your tastes and opinions for a reason: their survival depends on understanding the tastes and opinions of their peers. You will stick with them (usually). Their peers are free to abandon them. Peer relationships are fragile but important. Parent-child relationships, however important, are much more durable, so they require less attention from the child.
by pessimizer
0 subcomment
- Wouldn't they, if you limited the study to the last 30 years during which mothers barely got to see their kids because of work? If you check 30 years from now it will be "Favorite Video Games and Internet Personalities, Not Childhood Friends, Shape Attachment Styles Most"
- am i reading this right that the effect size is 4%? how does this say anything?
- I believe this is called the post-treatment bias. If the causal arrow goes (mother-baby) -> (child-friends) -> (adult-attachment) and you include the middle one, you have already controlled for the first, and the effect disappears. Learning about the first tells you very little more once you have learnt the second.
by mandown2308
0 subcomment
- From personal experience, I would say that's quite true.
- Sure, and to whom does a childhood friend first attach?
- duplicate post of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45790575
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