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  • Attachment representations and social competence in preschool children
    Publication . Fernandes, Marília Solange Ornelas; Veríssimo, Manuela
    From an attachment theory perspective, based on their interactions’ history with the caregivers, children elaborate a mental representation that summarizes their secure base experiences and adapt them to the larger social world (i.e. with peers and other significant adults). This will guide their social strategies (both adaptive and maladaptive). The empirical evidence is consensual, demonstrating positive associations between attachment security (whether assessed as a behavioral organization or as a mental representation) and social competent behavior. However, most of these studies use indirect measures to assess social competence, prevailing a focus on one informant, mostly teachers’ or mothers’ perspectives while father’s perspective on children’s social competence is disregarded These empirical studies aim to contribute to the current state of knowledge about the impact of attachment relationships for the development of social competence in preschool years, emphasizing the importance of using a multiple informant approach. In the first study, in a sample of 369 mother-father-teacher reports, we explored parents’ and teachers’ perception of children’s social competence using the Social Competence and Behavior Evaluation-30 questionnaire and tested for measurement invariance across raters. Using CT-C(M-1), we confirmed a strong agreement between both parents, and only a weak agreement when comparing parents with teacher’ ratings. Results also showed that mothers are in more agreement with teacher than are fathers. We also found that differences between boys and girls are not due to measurement variance. In the second study, in a sample of 82 children and their teachers, we analyzed the contributes of the SBS to teachers’ ratings on child social competence composite, and on externalizing and internalizing behavior composites. Our results indicate that security of attachment representations was positively related with social competence and negatively related with ratings on externalizing behaviors. We also found sex differences in SBS and reported social competence, both favoring girls. In the last study, in a sample of 77 children, we continued exploring SBS relations with children’s social competence by including, not only, indirect teacher’s ratings, but also direct observed measures. Results indicate that having a higher secure base script predicts higher values on both child direct and indirect measured social competence. Sex differences were also found, with girls presenting higher SBS and being rated as more social competent by their teachers. Observers described boys as more social engaged. Taken together, these three empirical studies aim to contribute for the understanding of the relation between attachment relationships and children’s social competence in the preschool group, highlighting the importance of using a multiple informant approach, and exploring sex differences.
    2020-02-14Doctoral thesis Open access Show more