Adult Attachment Outcomes and the Timing of Adverse Childhood Experiences

Abstract

Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) encompass a wide range of abuse, neglect, community violence, and household dysfunction occurring before the age of 18, and are related to multiple mental and behavioral health indicators in adulthood. ACEs research is frequently guided by a subtle, under-tested assumption: ACEs are assumed to be especially consequential because they happen during childhood. We sought to test this assumption with respect to adult attachment insecurity with a multinational adult sample (N = 7,135). We regressed attachment anxiety and avoidance on the age of first occurrence for 14 ACEs. We found that the age at which one is exposed to ACEs is generally unrelated to general and romantic adult attachment insecurity. However, the age of first occurrence is related to parental attachment, such that experiencing ACEs at an earlier age is associated with heightened parental insecurity. Implications for the ACEs and attachment literatures are discussed.

Keywords

adult attachment adverse childhood experiences timing trauma close relationships

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Asmussen

McBride

Waddell

(2019). The potential of early intervention for preventing and reducing ACE-related trauma. Social Policy and Society, 18(3), 425–434.

Bowlby

(1973). Attachment and loss: Vol. 2. Separation: Anxiety and anger. Basic Books.

Bowlby

(1982). Attachment and loss: Vol. I. Attachment (2nd ed.). Basic Books (Original work published 1969).

Baer

J. C.

Martinez

C. D.

(2006). Child maltreatment and insecure attachment: A meta-analysis. Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, 24(3), 187–197.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2023, June 29). Fast facts: Preventing adverse childhood experiences|violence prevention|injury Center|CDC. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/fastfact.html

Crawford

Wright

M. O. D.

(2007). The impact of childhood psychological maltreatment on interpersonal schemas and subsequent experiences of relationship aggression. Journal of Emotional Abuse, 7(2), 93–116.

Dagan

Facompré

C. R.

Bernard

(2018). Adult attachment representations and depressive symptoms: A meta-analysis. Journal of Affective Disorders, 236, 274–290.

Davila

Burge

Hammen

(1997). Why does attachment style change?. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73(4), 826.

Davila

Karney

B. R.

Bradbury

T. N.

(1999). Attachment change processes in the early years of marriage. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(5), 783.

10.

Davila

Sargent

(2003). The meaning of life (events) predicts changes in attachment security. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29(11), 1383–1395.

11.

De Wolff

M. S.

Van Ijzendoorn

M. H.

(1997). Sensitivity and attachment: A meta-analysis on parental antecedents of infant attachment. Child Development, 68(4), 571–591.

12.

Dugan

K. A.

Fraley

R. C.

(2022). The roles of parental and partner attachment working models in romantic relationships. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 39(7), 2154–2180.

13.

Dugan

K. A.

Fraley

R. C.

Gillath

Deboeck

P. R.

(2024). Testing the canalization hypothesis of attachment theory: Examining within-subject variation in attachment security. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 126(3), 511.

14.

Dunn

E. C.

Nishimi

Powers

Bradley

(2017). Is developmental timing of trauma exposure associated with depressive and post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in adulthood?. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 84, 119–127.

15.

Dunn

E. C.

Soare

T. W.

Raffeld

M. R.

Busso

D. S.

Crawford

K. M.

Davis

K. A.

Fisher

V. A.

Slopen

Smith

A. D. A. C.

Tiemeier

Susser

E. S.

(2018). What life course theoretical models best explain the relationship between exposure to childhood adversity and psychopathology symptoms: Recency, accumulation, or sensitive periods?. Psychological Medicine, 48(15), 2562–2572.

16.

Egeland

Carlson

E. A.

(2004). Attachment and psychopathology. In L. Atkinson & S. Goldberg (Eds.), Attachment issues in psychopathology and intervention (pp. 27–48). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.

17.

Felitti

V. J.

Anda

R. F.

Nordenberg

Williamson

D. F.

Spitz

A. M.

Edwards

Marks

J. S.

(1998). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245–258.

18.

Finkelhor

Shattuck

Turner

Hamby

(2015). A revised inventory of adverse childhood experiences. Child Abuse & Neglect, 48, 13–21.

19.

Fraley

R. C.

(2019). Attachment in adulthood: Recent developments, emerging debates, and future directions. Annual Review of Psychology, 70, 401–422.

20.

Fraley

R. C.

Gillath

Deboeck

P. R.

(2021). Do life events lead to enduring changes in adult attachment styles? A naturalistic longitudinal investigation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 120(6), 1567.

21.

Fraley

R. C.

Heffernan

M. E.

(2013). Attachment and parental divorce: A test of the diffusion and sensitive period hypotheses. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 39(9), 1199–1213.

22.

Fraley

R. C.

Heffernan

M. E.

Vicary

A. M.

Brumbaugh

C. C.

(2011). The experiences in close relationships—Relationship Structures Questionnaire: A method for assessing attachment orientations across relationships. Psychological Assessment, 23(3), 615.

23.

Fraley

R. C.

Roisman

G. I.

Haltigan

J. D.

(2013). The legacy of early experiences in development: Formalizing alternative models of how early experiences are carried forward over time. Developmental Psychology, 49(1), 109.

24.

Hudson

N. W.

Fraley

R. C.

Chopik

W. J.

Heffernan

M. E.

(2015). Not all attachment relationships develop alike: Normative cross-sectional age trajectories in attachment to romantic partners, best friends, and parents. Journal of Research in Personality, 59, 44–55.

25.

Lowell

Renk

Adgate

A. H.

(2014). The role of attachment in the relationship between child maltreatment and later emotional and behavioral functioning. Child Abuse & Neglect, 38(9), 1436–1449.

26.

McNelis

Segrin

(2019). Insecure attachment predicts history of divorce, marriage, and current relationship status. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 60(5), 404–417. https://doi.org/10.1080/10502556.2018.1558856

27.

Merrick

M. T.

Ford

D. C.

Ports

K. A.

Guinn

A. S.

(2018). Prevalence of adverse childhood experiences from the 2011–2014 behavioral risk factor surveillance system in 23 states. JAMA Pediatrics, 172(11), 1038–1044.

28.

Ogle

C. M.

Rubin

D. C.

Siegler

I. C.

(2013). The impact of the developmental timing of trauma exposure on PTSD symptoms and psychosocial functioning among older adults. Developmental Psychology, 49(11), 2191.

29.

Oshri

Himelboim

Kwon

J. A.

Sutton

T. E.

Mackillop

(2015). Childhood physical and sexual abuse and social network patterns on social media: Associations with alcohol use and problems among young adult women. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 76(6), 845–851.

30.

Petruccelli

Davis

Berman

(2019). Adverse childhood experiences and associated health outcomes: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Child Abuse & Neglect, 97, 104127.

31.

R Core Team (2023). R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing. https://www.R-project.org/

32.

Revelle

(2021). Psych: Procedures for psychological, psycho metric, and personality research. Northwestern University. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=psych

33.

Riggs

S. A.

Kaminski

(2010). Childhood emotional abuse, adult attachment, and depression as predictors of relational adjustment and psychological aggression. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 19(1), 75–104.

34.

Sahle

B. W.

Reavley

N. J.

Morgan

A. J.

Yap

M. B. H.

Reupert

Jorm

A. F.

(2021). The association between adverse childhood experiences and common mental disorders and suicidality: An umbrella review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 31(10), 1489–1499.

35.

Shanahan

Copeland

W. E.

Costello

E. J.

Angold

(2011). Child-, adolescent-and young adult-onset depressions: Differential risk factors in development?. Psychological Medicine, 41(11), 2265–2274.

36.

Sroufe

L. A.

Egeland

Carlson

E. A.

Collins

W. A.

(2005). The development of the person: The Minnesota study of risk and adaptation from birth to adulthood. Guilford Press.

37.

Sroufe

L. A.

Waters

(1977). Heart rate as a convergent measure in clinical and developmental research. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly of Behavior and Development, 23(1), 3–27.

38.

Zlotnick

Johnson

Kohn

Vicente

Rioseco

Saldivia

(2008). Childhood trauma, trauma in adulthood, and psychiatric diagnoses: Results from a community sample. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 49(2), 163–169.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

1.01 MB