Attachment dimensions and cortisol responses during the strange situation among young children adopted internationally

ABSTRACT

Children’s attachments to their parents may help regulate their hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axes. Prior research has largely focused on children with relatively consistent and low-risk caregiving histories, resulting in limited knowledge about the associations between attachment quality and HPA axis reactivity among children who have experienced early adversity. This study investigated whether dimensional measures of attachment quality were associated with HPA responses to the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP) among 64 children ages 11–33 months adopted internationally from institutional or foster care. Children who showed high levels of attachment avoidance exhibited a blunted cortisol response during the SSP. Conversely, children who sought proximity and contact with their adoptive parents exhibited an increase in cortisol reactivity during the SSP, followed by a return to baseline levels after the completion of the procedure. This association was independent of the previously reported association between parental insensitivity and blunted cortisol responses in this sample.

KEYWORDS:

• Attachment
• HPA axis
• Strange Situation
• International adoption

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health grant R01MH083125. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institute of Mental Health. We thank the children and families who participated in the research, Elizabeth Carlson for coding the Strange Situation observations, Mary Dozier for her comments on an earlier draft of the paper, and Carrie E. DePasquale for her herculean efforts preparing the data used in these analyses prior to her untimely and tragic passing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed https://doi.org/10.1080/14616734.2021.1896445.