Department of Psychology, University of Montreal.
Laboratoire Paragraphe, Université Paris 8.
J Fam Psychol. 2018 Apr;32(3):396-405. doi: 10.1037/fam0000387.
Despite being a well-documented predictor of children's cognitive and social development, sibship has received remarkably little attention in the attachment and maternal sensitivity literature. The only study that has examined both sensitivity and attachment in relation to sibship found greater maternal sensitivity but no more secure attachment among first-born infants. In the current study, we sought to examine the same links while testing two related hypotheses: that sibship size relates only to some specific aspects of sensitivity, and that sibship size relates to sensitivity only among certain mothers, namely those who are at risk for suboptimal parenting because of an insecure attachment state of mind. We assessed three dimensions of maternal sensitivity at 12 months and child attachment at 15 and 25 months among 258 mother-infant dyads living in intact biparental families. Compared with mothers who had fewer children, those with more children were observed to be less accessible/available, less positive, but not less cooperative/attuned, when interacting with their infant. These links were moderated by maternal attachment state of mind, such that significant relations were observed only among mothers presenting a more insecure state of mind. Finally, sibship size was unrelated to attachment. These findings suggest that failure to consider different dimensions of sensitivity or important parental moderators may result in the erroneous conclusion that birth order and sibship size are inconsequential for parent-child relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record
尽管同胞关系是儿童认知和社会发展的一个有充分记录的预测因素，但在依恋和母亲敏感性文献中，它受到的关注却少得惊人。唯一一项研究同时考察了敏感性和依恋与同胞关系的关系，发现初生孩子的母亲敏感性更高，但依恋关系更安全。在当前的研究中，我们试图在检验两个相关假设的同时，检验这些联系：同胞关系的大小仅与敏感性的某些特定方面有关，而且同胞关系的大小仅与某些母亲有关，即那些由于依恋状态不安全而存在不良育儿风险的母亲。我们在 258 对生活在完整双亲家庭中的母婴对中，在 12 个月时评估了母亲敏感性的三个维度，在 15 个月和 25 个月时评估了儿童依恋。与孩子较少的母亲相比，有更多孩子的母亲在与婴儿互动时，表现出较低的易接近性/可用性、较低的积极性，但合作性/协调性没有降低。这些联系受到母亲依恋心理状态的调节，只有在母亲表现出更不安全的心理状态时，才会观察到这些关系。最后，同胞关系的大小与依恋无关。这些发现表明，如果不考虑敏感性的不同维度或重要的父母调节因素，可能会得出错误的结论，即出生顺序和同胞关系大小对亲子关系不重要。
