ATTACHMENT STYLES AND PARENTAL REPRESENTATIONS

Relationships between attachment styles and the content and structure of mental representations of parents were investigated. Undergraduates completed 3- and 4-category measures of attachment style and wrote de scriptions of their parents. Securely attached participants' parental representations were characterized by differentiation, elaboration, be nevolence, and nonpunitiveness. Representations by dismissing particip ants were characterized by less differentiation and more punitiveness and malevolence. Fearful participants also described their parents as relatively punitive and malevolent, but their representations were wel l differentiated and conceptually complex. Anxious-ambivalent particip ants described their parents ambivalently as both punitive and benevol ent.