The intergenerational transmission of attachment patterns is one of the most reliable
yet least understood findings of attachment research. The aim of this report was to
examine the capacity of maternal mind-mindedness to account for the relation between
adult attachment state of mind and infant attachment security. Sixty-four foster
children (aged 6–30 months) participated with their foster mothers. The
mother’s tendency to use mental features in describing her child
(mindmindedness) was negatively related to the security of both maternal state of
mind and infant attachment. Further, mind-mindedness accounted for the totality of
the predictive power of state of mind on infant attachment. The results suggest that
age-appropriate representations of the child may help explain intergenerational
transmission, through their interplay with parental interactive behaviours.
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