Attachment representations of maltreated and non-maltreated pre-schoolers in Korea and its association with abuse type, chronicity, and severity: a comparative study

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to facilitate a better understanding of the psychological characteristics of maltreated children by comparing attachment representations between maltreated and non-maltreated pre-schoolers. Participants included 46 maltreated and 48 non-maltreated (children for whom evidence of maltreatment has not been identified or reported) pre-schoolers. The Attachment Story Completion Task was used to evaluate attachment representation; the Maltreatment Classification System was used to assess abuse type and chronicity. There was a difference in the contents of the attachment representations and distribution of attachment types between the two groups. Secure attachment in maltreated pre-schoolers was significantly lower than that in non-maltreated pre-schoolers whereas insecure-avoidant and disorganized attachment were higher. The likelihood of insecure attachment was higher when the abuse type was complex abuse and the abuse chronicity and severity were high. This study is meaningful as it investigated the developmental psychological consequences of trauma in Korean children.

KEYWORDS:

• Maltreated pre-schoolers
• abuse
• attachment representation
• Attachment Story Completion Task (ASCT)

Notes on contributor

Jihyeon Han holds a Ph.D. in Child Studies from Jeonbuk National university. She is a professor of Home Economics at Jeonbuk National university, where she focuses on the topic of various child studies. Her research interests centre on the relationship between parents and children, and her most recent experiments have been conducted on attachment in infancy, evaluation of interactions between parents and children, and various surveys on children and parents.

Data availability statement

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

ORCID

Jihyeon Han http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2358-4742

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Korea and the National Research Foundation of Korea [NRF-2017S1A5B5A07062935].