Comparative Movement Inclinations in 6-9 Years Old Children with Secure and Insecure Attachment Styles

This study aimed to investigate the movement inclinations in children age 6 to 9 with secure and insecure attachment styles. The research method was descriptive used a causal-comparative design. Participants comprised 24 male and female children aged 6 to 9 years old (including 8 children with secure attachment, 8 children with anxious insecure attachment, and 8 children with avoidant insecure attachment) selected by convenience sampling using Middle Childhood Attachment Scale (Ronaghi, Delavar & Mazaheri, 2012). Further, Considering the inclusion and exclusion criteria, the movement behavior of each child during his/her activities was videotaped and scored under the supervision of a movement expert using the researcher-made observational checklist of movement qualities and observational checklist of movement dimensions (Asaseh, 2014). Data were analyzed by Chi-squared test and multivariate analysis of variance. The results showed significant differences between the movement qualities among these three groups. Furthermore, they had differences in using the spatial dimensions; anxious children are more shaped in the horizontal dimensions and avoidant children in the vertical dimensions. These findings indicated that the observed individual differences in movement patterns were significantly related to different attachment orientations.