Maternal Descriptions of 2 and 3-year-old Children: A Comparison of Attachment Q-sorts in Two Socio-Cultural Communities

Abstract

A total of 101 mothers from two socio-cultural groups (55 French-speaking from Montreal and 46 English-speaking from Chicago) described their 2-or 3-year-old children using the Attachment Q-sort. The Q-sort descriptions from the two sites were compared at the level of criterion scores, at the level of derived scores for nine empirical scales, and at the level of individual Q-sort items. These analyses indicated only chance level differences between groups for analyses individual items. However, for the derived scales and for criterion scores, significant multivariate effects across samples were obtained. Additional analyses, covarying maternal age, education level, and social desirability response bias scores, indicated that only the criterion score for Attachment Security differed across the two socio-cultural groups. Subsequent correlational analyses relating empirical scale scores to the criterion scores for both samples yielded similar results. Only 3 of 27 separate pairs of correlations differed significantly across the two samples. The results suggest that the Attachment Q-sort is useful for evaluating differences among young children with respect to attachment security and related constructs in both sociocultural groups. However, the results also indicate that the scores derived from maternal Q-sort descriptions may be associated with demographic characteristics and culturally specific response biases that should be evaluated and controlled before interpreting the Q-sort scores with reference to universal, or species-specific, concepts of attachment security.