ATTACHMENT SECURITY AND INDISCRIMINATELY FRIENDLY BEHAVIOR IN CHILDREN ADOPTED FROM ROMANIAN ORPHANAGES

Attachment security was assessed in children who had spent at least 8 months in a Romanian orphanage (RO) and two comparison groups of child ren: a Canadian-born, nonadopted comparison group (CB) and a compariso n group adopted from Romania before the age of 4 months (RC). We also assessed differences in displays of indiscriminately friendly behavior between the two adopted groups of children. Attachment security was a ssessed using parent report on a questionnaire comprised of the 23 ite ms with the highest and lowest loadings on the Waters and Deane (1985) attachment Q-sort. Indiscriminately friendly behavior was assessed us ing parents' responses to five questions about their children's behavi or with new adults. Children's attachment security scores were also co mpared to parents' scores on the parent attachment subscale of the Par enting Stress Index (Abidin, 1990). RO children scored significantly l ower on security of attachment than did either the RC or CB children. RC and CB children did not differ on attachment security. Based on the ir parents' reports, RO children displayed significantly more indiscri minately friendly behaviors than did RC children, but such behaviors w ere not correlated with security of attachment. Children's attachment security scores were related to their parents attachment scores only i n the RO group. It is suggested that Po children's experience of extre me neglect contributed to their low attachment-security scores, and th at indiscriminate friendliness may be an important behavior to conside r in the study of attachment in institutionalized children.