Attachment models of the self and others: Relations with self‐esteem, humanity‐esteem, and parental treatment

Abstract

Abstract The present research tested the extent to which perceptions of early childhood experiences with parents predicted general views of the self (i.e., self‐esteem) and others (i.e., humanity‐esteem), and whether attachment self‐ and other‐models mediated these links. Two studies used a new measure of humanity‐esteem (Luke & Maio, 2004) to achieve these ends. As expected, indices that tapped a positive model of the self in relationships were associated with high self‐esteem and indices that tapped a positive model of others in relationships were associated with high humanity‐esteem. Also, early attachment experiences with fathers and mothers predicted self‐esteem and humanity‐esteem, respectively, and these direct relations were mediated by the attachment models. The studies, therefore, provide direct evidence that attachment measures predict general favorability toward the self and others, while revealing novel differences in the roles of childhood experiences with fathers and mothers. No variables, it is held, have more far‐reaching effects on personality development than a child's experiences within the family: for, starting during his first months in his relation with his mother figure, and extending through the years of childhood and adolescence in his relation to both parents, he builds up working models of how attachment figures are likely to behave towards him in any of a variety of situations; and on those models are based all his expectations, and therefore all his plans, for the rest of his life. Bowlby (1973; p. 369)

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 66 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.