Predicting Children's Attachment Indices According to Parental Attachment: An Intergenerational Study

The aim of the present study was to predict children’s attachment indices from parental attachment indices. Two hundred and seven students (146 females, 56 males, 5 unspecified) and their parents (207 fathers, 207 mothers) were selected from universities of Tehran using convenience sampling method. The participants completed the Adult Attachment Inventory (AAI; Besharat, 2011, 2013). The results indicated that parental attachment indices correlated significantly with children's attachment indices. The results of mixed model indicated that parental attachment indices could predicted children's attachment indices and attachment styles transmitted from parents to children intergenerationally. All three maternal attachment styles (secure, avoidant, ambivalent) could predicted children's attachment styles (secure, avoidant, resistant). However, paternal avoidant attachment style couldn’t predict children's attachment styles. The findings suggest that the attachment characteristics have the capacity to transmit from one generation to the other, by knowing the intergenerational mechanisms the attachment characteristics of the next generation can be predicted, and the transmission of pathological features could be prevented and healthy characteristics could be improved by implementing educational interventions.