Introduction
The Phenomenon: Parents’ attachment representations are strongly related with their child’s attachment security, suggesting that attachment is transmitted across generations (75% concordance in a recent meta-analysis, see Van Ijzendoorn, 1995).
A Mediational Model: Van Ijzendoorn proposed that adult attachment representations must affect infant security through a behavioral mediator, namely maternal sensitivity. However, several studies have shown that this path does not account for a large amount of variance (Ward & Carlson, 1995; Pederson, Gleason, Moran & Bento, 1998).