Editorial

Abstract

Attachment is an exciting topic where different research traditions, as diverse as psychoanalytic and cognitive psychology, have come together to reinvigorate the field. In the present issue there are two papers that indicate the fertility of this particular research area. The first of these is the paper by McCarthy and Taylor on the role of attachment style as a mediating link between abusive experiences in childhood and adult functioning. They found that avoidance/ambivalent attachment style, but not self-esteem and relationship attributions, mediated the impact of early abusive experiences on later adult functioning. A second paper by Crandell and Hobson also found that an aspect of women's accounts of their own childhood histories (in this case lack of coherence) was related to lower IQs in their children. This difference remains significant even after the influence of maternal IQ, education, and family socioeconomic status were taken into account. There was also some suggestion that the link between maternal “state of mind” and child IQ might be mediated partly by the quality of parent/child interactions. The authors suggest that although it is necessary to be cautious in interpreting the results from IQ tests with children as young as 3 years, the study highlights the need to consider how mother–infant relations may have an effect on young children's cognitive abilities. This result, if it can be replicated, represents a challenge to contemporary theories in developmental psychology that tend to downplay the role of shared environmental factors.