A differential susceptibility approach to the transmission gap in attachment

A meta-analysis (Verhage et al., 2016) examining 95 studies found that there is transmission of attachment representations from parents to their children and that this relation is partially explained by differences in parental sensitivity. However, even after examining 95 studies, the authors also had to conclude, like their predecessor (Van IJzendoorn, 1995) who meta-analyzed 19 studies two decades ago, that there is a transmission gap between parental attachment representations and child attachment, i.e., the concordance between parents’ and children’s attachment cannot be fully explained by observed parental behavior. More recent and unpublished studies reported weaker effect sizes for transmission and the transmission was moderated by a number of factors, such as psychosocial risks and the age of the children. Verhage et al. (2016) speculate that “some children might be more resilient against negative influences”. Inspired by this speculation, we will investigate whether children’s differential susceptibility (to parenting) is a moderating factor (partly) explaining the transmission gap. According to the differential susceptibility hypothesis, children vary in how much they are affected by positive as well as negative parenting (Belsky, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & Van IJzendoorn, 2007; Belsky & Pluess, 2009; Ellis et al., 2011). Highly susceptible children shall, when exposed to adverse environments, show more psychological problems, but shall also flourish more when exposed to supportive environments. Less susceptible children shall be less affected by adverse or supportive environments. Using this hypothesis, we want to test parts of Verhage et al.’s (2016) model. Their theoretical model of intergenerational transmission of attachment will be investigated including child differential susceptibility factors and making use of the secure base script assessment of attachment representations in parents and children (see Figure 1). Besides sensitivity of the parent which has been found to be a mediator in previous research (Witte et al., under review), parental sensitive discipline might be an important mediator. When using sensitive discipline, parents employ non-coercive strategies such as distraction or explaining the rules to cope with difficult child behavior (Van IJzendoorn et al., 2022). Although related, parental sensitive discipline and parental sensitivity are distinct and complementary dimensions of parenting. Witte et al. (under review) found an association between parental attachment representations and parental sensitive discipline. Therefore, sensitive discipline might be a complementary mediator in the relation between the parent’s attachment representation and the parent-child attachment. We thus expand the model by Verhage et al. (2016) by adding sensitive discipline as a possible second mediator.