Qualidade da vinculação percebida por mães e crianças em idade escolar provenientes de diferentes tipos de família

Abstract

The goals of this study are as follows: investigate the quality of child’s attachment behaviour across nuclear, single parent and step families, evaluate the convergence between mother and their child’s perceptions on the quality of mother-child attachment behaviour. This is a cross-sectional study, whose sample consisted of 168 children 8-11 years-old (M=9.17) and their mothers. The research protocol included the Separation Anxiety Test (SAT) and the Maternal Perception Scale of Children’s Attachment Behaviour (PCV-M). Results show that there is no significant convergence between the maternal perception of their child’s attachment behaviour and the child’s attachment representation. Nonetheless, in single parent families significant differences were found in the PCV-M secure base behaviour dimension, depending on the representation of children´s attachment as secure or insecure. There were no association between type of family and children´s attachment representation neither differences in the maternal perception of attachment between the different types of family. In conclusion, the mother’s perception of their child’s attachment behaviour doesn’t vary across different types of families, even if there is a low degree of convergence between mothers and their offspring regarding the quality of children’s attachment behaviour.