Traditionally, attachment representations in middle childhood are regarded as stable traits. However, research confirms that the attachments are subjected to change with time and situations, which are regulated by life events, exposure, and numerous contextual factors (Brumariu et al., 2018). The peer-reviewed article is about a study conducted to evaluate if the experiences found in the maternal support modify children's state trust in mother’s availability. An experiment is conducted where children are set to watch a video of a negative mood to instill negative emotions (Brumariu et al., 2018). The subsequent experiment divides the children into three groups. Mothers are assigned as independent variables, in a way that mothers of the first group offer secure base support to the distressed children, the second group has mothers who did not give emotional support but were physically present, and the last group had completely no mothers. This paper comprehensively analyses the article “State trust in middle childhood” in terms of methodology, results, and credibility.
The researcher employed a method of sampling where 120 children-54% of girls from the age of 9-13 years were taken. According to Brumariu et al. (2018), the children were randomly assigned to each group among the three formally specified situations. About 79.17% stayed with both parents, 17.5% had divorced parents, while 2.5% were not close to their father as a result of natural reasons. A representation of 0.83% had no father due to death and lived with the mother in an intermingled family. All the children were raised by their mothers from birth except one who was adopted since birth. Statistics regarding the level of education of the mothers and fathers involved in the research were taken ( Vandevivere et al., 2018).
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After the research, results confirmed that stressed children who lacked mothers or were only available without offering emotional support scored lower marks on state trust compared to other children who received secure base support. The research further revealed that after the other children received secure base care, there was no more difference in state trust among those with support conditions and those without. However, the temperaments could not explain those effects but pointed out the activation of trust states to interact with support-providing mothers (Dani, 2019).
However, the researcher has exposed some limitations. First, the mothers' behavior was not subjected to integrity-check. Even though the mothers were given written instructions, in my opinion, the researcher needed to record the behavior of the mother regarding the effectiveness of providing support. Besides, there was no confirmation in the children about their interpretation of the mother. I have a suggestion that some children might have interpreted the secure base behavior of the mothers as supportive while others did not.
Furthermore, trust in mothers’ availability was the only component of attachment measured using self-report. Arguments exist among scholars that self-report is a less valid approach for measuring attachment ( Vandevivere et al., 2018) . The narratives and interviews that measure attachments are created to measure trait attachment and not state fluctuation (Brumariu et al., 2018) . Also, I opine there was a causal effect of maternal support on childhood behavior. For instance, the children were subjected to a video of negative emotions from 7 pm, a video most of the children had prior exposure to. The research failed to convince me since the study took place at the children’s home and the person’s differences concerning maternal attachment technique having no impact on the state-trust after the manipulations.
Despite all the limitations cited above, I have a positive overall impression that the work is recommendable. First, there is a confirmation of evidence showing the influence concerning secure base support on the trust state of children. The research is important since it adds value in experimental evidence for the already established correlational phenomenon, which confirms that supportive parenting is linked to attachment development ( Brumariu et al., 2018). However, I recommend more research regarding attachment state linking the developing secure base script to recognize processed underlying attachment in middle childhood.
Furthermore, as argued by Brumariu et al. (2018), when this information on findings is incorporated in psychology fields, it helps in the development of a novel of interventions supporting the middle childhood attachment development. The psychologists need to understand from the finding that the mothers' behavior has a consequence of state trust levels of the children ( Brumariu et al., 2018). Therefore, the data can provide an excellent avenue to aid children to construct a secure base script basing on the attempts to make them resilient against antagonistic consequences of distressing experiences in their later life (Dani, 2019).
To sum up, it should be appreciated that such studies and experiments provide vital information useful in psychology concepts and other fields of study. The method incorporated in the research was appropriate with slight gaps, such as failing to capture information regarding the effectiveness of the mothers' displayed behavior. However, I recommend that the study should be improved by working on the limitations discussed in this article. The experiment should not be conducted in the homes of the children. Also, the video subjected to the children of 7 pm should not be familiar to them, since some were already conversant with the negative emotions that the video attempted to create.
References
Brumariu, L. E., Giuseppone, K. R., Kerns, K. A., Van de Walle, M., Bureau, J. F., Bosmans, G., & Lyons-Ruth, K. (2018). Middle Childhood Attachment Strategies: validation of an observational measure. Attachment & human development , 20 (5), 491-513.
Dani, D. (2019). A community and place-based approach to middle childhood science teacher education. Middle School Journal , 50 (2), 45-52.
Vandevivere, E., Bosmans, G., Roels, S., Dujardin, A., & Braet, C. (2018). State trust in middle childhood: An experimental manipulation of maternal support. Journal of Child and Family Studies , 27 (4), 1252-1263.
