Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Social Issues, Birkbeck University of London, London, United Kingdom.
Psychol Sci. 2010 Sep;21(9):1195-201. doi: 10.1177/0956797610379867. Epub 2010 Aug 16.
Life-history theories of the early programming of human reproductive strategy stipulate that early rearing experience, including that reflected in infant-parent attachment security, regulates psychological, behavioral, and reproductive development. We tested the hypothesis that infant attachment insecurity, compared with infant attachment security, at the age of 15 months predicts earlier pubertal maturation. Focusing on 373 White females enrolled in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, we gathered data from annual physical exams from the ages of 9½ years to 15½ years and from self-reported age of menarche. Results revealed that individuals who had been insecure infants initiated and completed pubertal development earlier and had an earlier age of menarche compared with individuals who had been secure infants, even after accounting for age of menarche in the infants' mothers. These results support a conditional-adaptational view of individual differences in attachment security and raise questions about the biological mechanisms responsible for the attachment effects we discerned.
生命史理论认为，人类生殖策略的早期编程受早期养育经历的影响，包括婴儿-父母依恋安全性所反映的经历，调节心理、行为和生殖发育。我们检验了这样一个假设，即与 15 个月大时的婴儿依恋安全相比，婴儿依恋不安全预测青春期更早成熟。本研究专注于全国儿童健康和人类发展研究所的 373 名白人女性，我们从 9 岁半到 15 岁半的年度体检以及自我报告的初潮年龄中收集数据。结果表明，与依恋安全的个体相比，不安全婴儿的个体更早开始和完成青春期发育，并且初潮年龄更早，即使考虑到婴儿母亲的初潮年龄也是如此。这些结果支持了依恋安全性个体差异的条件适应观点，并提出了有关我们发现的依恋效应的生物学机制的问题。
