Concurring patterns of women’s identity status, attachment styles, and understanding of children’s development

Abstract

A total of 96 mothers of preschool children participated in a study examining the relationships among identity status and the variables of family attachment style and understanding of children’s development. Results indicated that women in the committed identity statuses of identity achievement and, contrary to expectation, foreclosure, were highest in secure attachment. Fearful attachment predominated among the uncommitted identity statuses of moratorium and identity diffusion. Achievement women were the highest and diffusion women lowest in their understanding of children’s development. Examination of attachment styles as categorical variables, for achievements and foreclosures, revealed two different patterns within each status: secure and insecure. When achievements and foreclosures were grouped according to their attachment classifications and their perspectivistic scores analysed, achieved-insecure women had relatively high perspectivistic scores (in fact, the highest among the statuses) and foreclosed-insecure women had relatively low ones (almost as low as diffuse women). These results suggest that there may be two distinct patterns of both foreclosure and achievement for adult women.