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This study examined the relation between adolescent mothers’ interpretations of various child emotion expressions and coercive parenting practices (n = 4 mother-child dyads, child ages = 10–34 mos.). The more coercive mothers decoded a range of child emotion expressions as exhibiting greater anger, and attributed greater defiant intentions to the child, compared to less coercive mothers. The findings for attributions of defiance were robust, as they were independent of both emotion decoding and level of child difficulty. Findings are discussed with regard to (a) mothers’ basic assumptions about the child; (b) the robust character of attributions of defiance in relation to coercive parenting; (c) the potential implications of this study for research with adult mothers; and (d) investigation of temporal precedence and developmental pathways in the interrelations among child behavior, maternal cognition, and parenting behavior.

There has been increasing interest in adult attachment from both theoretical and empirical perspectives. B ecause the test of a theory is based on our ability to assess theoretical constructs, the review is organized around assessment techniques. Delineating the content, focus, assumptions, and correlates of different attachment measures highlights central issues and problems in conducting research in adult attachment. In this review, we present theoretical issues related to adul t attachment, in particular, individual differences, working models, and the role of attachment in adult life. A summary of the measures commonly used in the study of adult a ttachment follows. The literature review is organized by measure, examining topics such as relations between childhood experiences and adult attachment status, and adult attachment and adult personality and functio ning, parenting and partnership behavior. Studies which explore relations between measures are discussed b efore concluding with thoughts about fut ure directions.