Browsing by Author "Martin, David R."
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Item Attachment Security and Caregiving Scripts: Links to Prosocial Comforting(2016) Martin, David R.; Cassidy, Jude A; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Prosocial behavior is a key marker of healthy social development in children. Studies consistently find that attachment security is an important predictor of children’s prosocial behavior. Studies investigating mechanisms that explain this relation are not necessary for understanding prosocial development. The goal of this study was to investigate a proposed mechanism, caregiving scripts, that might explain the relation between attachment security and prosocial comforting. A community sample of four-year old children (n = 88) completed a series of lab tasks assessing their attachment security, caregiving script knowledge, and response to an experimenter’s distress. Results reveal that attachment security predicted children’s comforting behavior and caregiving script knowledge. However, contrary to hypotheses, caregiving scripts did not mediate the relation between attachment security and prosocial comforting These findings are partially consistent with previous results and suggest that further study is necessary to understand the function of the caregiving script.Item Circle of Security–Parenting: A randomized controlled trial in Head Start(Cambridge University Press, 2017-04-12) Cassidy, Jude; Brett, Bonnie E.; Gross, Jacquelyn T.; Stern, Jessica A.; Martin, David R.; Mohr, Jonathan J.; Woodhouse, Susan S.Although evidence shows that attachment insecurity and disorganization increase risk for the development of psychopathology (Fearon, Bakermans-Kranenburg, van IJzendoorn, Lapsley, & Roisman, 2010; Groh, Roisman, van IJzendoorn, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & Fearon, 2012), implementation challenges have precluded dissemination of attachment interventions on the broad scale at which they are needed. The Circle of Security–Parenting Intervention (COS-P; Cooper, Hoffman, & Powell, 2009), designed with broad implementation in mind, addresses this gap by training community service providers to use a manualized, video-based program to help caregivers provide a secure base and a safe haven for their children. The present study is a randomized controlled trial of COS-P in a low-income sample of Head Start enrolled children and their mothers. Mothers (N = 141; 75 intervention, 66 waitlist control) completed a baseline assessment and returned with their children after the 10-week intervention for the outcome assessment, which included the Strange Situation. Intent to treat analyses revealed a main effect for maternal response to child distress, with mothers assigned to COS-P reporting fewer unsupportive (but not more supportive) responses to distress than control group mothers, and a main effect for one dimension of child executive functioning (inhibitory control but not cognitive flexibility when maternal age and marital status were controlled), with intervention group children showing greater control. There were, however, no main effects of intervention for child attachment or behavior problems. Exploratory follow-up analyses suggested intervention effects were moderated by maternal attachment style or depressive symptoms, with moderated intervention effects emerging for child attachment security and disorganization, but not avoidance; for inhibitory control but not cognitive flexibility; and for child internalizing but not externalizing behavior problems. This initial randomized controlled trial of the efficacy of COS-P sets the stage for further exploration of “what works for whom” in attachment intervention.