Perceived social support mediates between prior attachment and subsequent adjustment: A study of urban African American children

The processes whereby attachment and other social and cognitive factors con tribute to social and emotional adjustment were examined. Participants were 56;African American children from low-income urban families. Attachment an d sociability were assessed in the strange situation when children were 4.5 years old. Two years later, children were interviewed regarding their perc eptions of social support and their attributions about others' intentions. Also assessed at Time 2 were child verbal intelligence, defensive response style, children's self-reports, and parent reports of child adjustment. As expected, attachment uniquely predicted perceived social support. Insecure attachment predicted self-reports of behavior problems and parental report of internalizing problems. Perceived social support was associated positive ly and significantly with viewing ambiguously depicted actions as prosocial rather than aggressive. Perceived social support was found to mediate the relation between attachment and adjustment. Results suggest that behavioral ly mediated strategies for relating to caregivers in early childhood predic t generalized social perception, thought, and emotion at later ages.