Beyond Meta-Analysis: A Plea for a Family Systems View of Attachment

• Published in: Child development Vol. 68; no. 4; pp. 601 - 603
• Main Author: Cowan, Philip A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States University of Chicago Press 01-08-1997; University of Chicago Press for the Society for Research in Child Development, etc; Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Subjects: Adult; Analysis; Attachment Behavior; Behavior modeling; Child development; Children; Correlations; Data Interpretation, Statistical; Families & family life; Family (Sociological Unit); Family - psychology; Family Systems Theory; Fathers; Female; Humans; Infant, Newborn; Infants; Male; Marital Quality; Marital Satisfaction; Maternal Behavior; Meta Analysis; Meta-Analysis as Topic; Modeling; Models, Psychological; Mothers; Object Attachment; Parent Child Relationship; Parent Influence; Parent Role; Review and Commentary; Security Classifications; Security of Attachment; Systematic review; Systems Analysis; Systems Approach; Systems Theory; Theories
• ISSN: 0009-3920; 1467-8624
• DOI: 10.2307/1132111

De Wolff and van IJzendoorn's (1997) meta-analysis of parental antecedents of infant attachment focuses almost entirely on maternal behavior. I argue here that although the meta-analysis method makes an important contribution to summarizing research studies, it limits the conceptual understanding of attachment to simple causal models, and ignores family systems models that could illuminate our understanding of the development of secure and insecure attachment in children.