Toddler's attachment security and their conflict regulation during a story completion task in their preschool years

Abstract

Young children's patterns of attachment can be validly assessed with the Strange Situation procedure. More recently attempts have been made to infer preschool children's attachment status from their narratives. In the present study (N = 16) a Story Completion Task was administered to nearly five-years-old children with story stems focussing on mother-child conflicts. The children's solutions were analyzed with respect to content (resulting conflict solution) and structure (regulation of negative affects and communicative openness) of their reactions. These parameters of conflict regulation could be validated against the children's ``Strange Situation'' classifications, which had been assessed at the children's age of two years according to the guidelines of Crittenden, The results underline the usefulness of carefully designed Story Completion Tasks for the assessment of preschool children.