"Does Secure Attachment with Parents or Caregivers Cause Higher Self-Esteem in Children?"
Presenter(s)
Jacqueline Richardson
Department(s)
Psychology
Program(s)/Keywords
attachment, self-esteem, mental health
Abstract or Description
What if a child's self-esteem stems from the bond they have with their parents? How could different parenting styles impact the development of self-esteem in children and could that affect children overtime into adulthood? Well, my presentation goes over question "Does Secure Attachment with Parents or Caregivers Cause Higher Self-Esteem in Children?" and discusses how children and as they get older may benefit more from secure attachment as it can increase the likeliness of better self-esteem while children having insecure attachment makes it more likely for children to develop lower self-esteems. In article 1, I talked about how they found positive correlations to the relationship that a person's self-esteem is better when a person's security is increased. In article 2, I talked about how they found that insecure attachments negatively affect mental health, and those who have anxious attachment are likely to more have low self-esteem and negative thoughts. As well, In article 3, I talked about how they found that childhood attachment influences self-esteem and impacts adult attachment, and that adult attachment helps explain how self-esteem can relate to mental health issues. From this article I was able to take away that improving self-esteem and secure attachment in adults can help reduce the negative effects from childhood insecure attachment which shows the impact parenting styles can have on ones self-esteem from childhood into their adulthood. Overall, I concluded yes, secure attachment from parents can cause a child's self-esteem to be higher. However that it was important to note that other factors can also be a part of determining a child/persons self-esteem separate from receiving secure attachment from their parents.
Mentor
Ashley Hansen-Brown
Comments
Nathaniel Cady2 months ago
Hi Jacqueline! I see how you are talking about self esteem in your project, I just had a follow up question about it. Did you find out any of the other factors that could play into self-esteem? I always think about the third party variables and was wondering if any caught your eye when researching.
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Jacqueline Richardson2 months ago
Yes! Other factors that could play into self-esteem are that people experience different life events that may happen in their lives whether it is positive or negative. For example of positive events can include a person making several achievements, having support from others whether it is from family, peers, or others you are surrounded by that could empower you or make you feel better about yourself, also having a good relationship with oneself as it can help with self-acceptance and love for who you are and increase those positive feelings towards how you perceive yourself. For the negative experiences that could influence self-esteem, you could experience traumatic instances which could be, bullying, abuse, neglect, dealing with death, etc., not having people in your corner to care or support you and your goals, being constantly criticized for things since it could make you feel that you are not good enough, and having a negative relationship with oneself as if you think poorly about who you are as a person or believe you are not good enough, that impacts your self-perception negatively. I also think a person's personality could also impact self-esteem, as personality can determine how a person is and who they are and depending on a person's characteristics whether it is from external or internal factors, those can shape how they perceive themselves as well.
Dr. Hansen-Brown2 months ago
Nice job with your presentation, Jacqueline. You concluded that it seems likely that secure attachment causes higher self-esteem, but in order to make a strong causal claim, we would need to have experimental evidence showing that this is the case. Did you come across any experimental research while you were searching for articles?
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Jacqueline Richardson2 months ago
Thank you for the feedback needed! I realize that all my findings and even the ones I looked at besides my main three articles, were non-experimental, which makes my claim not as accurate. Although, the reason I believe that this is the case for why I only found non-experimental studies is because when it comes to asking does secure attachment cause higher self-esteem in children, I do not think it would be the most ethical to do an experimental study on this topic due to the fact that researchers would not be able to control or manipulate if a child is able to have a secure attachment with their parents or not to see how that would impact their self-esteem or the child later in life, as it could cause harm to a child's well-being. With non-experimental study, researchers can determine the likeliness of it as they can study how people grow up and make correlations of self-esteem based on what participants answer and see longitudinally how secure attachment could impact a child's esteem into later in life. However, with understanding that it is still non-experimental research I used, if I could revise my presentation, I would rather conclude that it cannot be fully determined as even though my results showed likeliness that secure attachment from parents increased self-esteem in children and later in life, that it cannot be fully solidified as there is lack of experimental research on my topic to prove the strength of my claim, which I should have noted in my presentation as well.
Alexa McGonagle2 months ago
Great presentation, Jacqueline! I like that you included the breakdown of different attachment styles. Did you come across any information about parenting styles while conducting your research? If so, how do they play into attachment?
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Jacqueline Richardson2 months ago
Thank you! Within my research, I did come across a little bit about the different parenting styles but they did not go over how they can play into attachment other than that the authoritative parenting style is the best for children to be more likely to have secure attachment as it provides children structure and a balanced relationship which creates a stable, warm, and heathy environment for children to grow up in. However, with looking into it, for the other parenting styles such as authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved attachment, those are more likely to cause insecure attachment. For authoritarian, insecure attachment is more likely because that parenting involves high expectations of a child, more hostile, and involves parents having more control over them rather than having a more equal relationship in which could cause children to be more anxious and/or avoidant due to fear, being more likely to be critical of oneself or not living up to parents expectations. For permissive parenting, insecure attachment is more likely because even though this type of parenting is warmer and loving than authoritarian, they do not provide as much structure for children where they do not expect much from them and do not discipline often even when needed. This could cause children to develop an anxious attachment as they would struggle with self-regulation due to not enough structure and boundaries growing up. As well, for uninvolved parenting, this could cause insecure attachment as this parenting involves little structure and are more neglectful of their children which does not provide stability. This can cause avoidant and anxious attachment in children as they are more likely to not be emotionally regulated and be afraid of developing relationships with others.
Hannah Brown2 months ago
This was a really good presentation Jacqueline! You mentioned how secure attachment from parents can help build higher self-esteem in children and even effect them into adulthood. Based on your research, do you think that it would be possible for someone with insecure attachment in childhood to later develop high self-esteem through other relationships in adulthood? What kind of factors do you think would help support that type of change in adulthood?
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Jacqueline Richardson2 months ago
Thank you! For your questions, yes I do think it would be possible for someone with insecure attachment in childhood to later develop high self-esteem through relationships in adulthood, and factors that I think would help support that type of change in adulthood is by different positive relationships a person could have like a romantic relationship or close friends in one’s life that can help shift someone's attachment as they can help the person feel better about themselves or heal what caused the person's insecure attachment overtime with love and care. People could also try and make things better with their parents and see if they can heal any issues, but that depends on the person and their parents. Also, people could try to go to therapy to be able to speak to someone about their childhood and how it impacted them, that way they could speak to a professional to develop ways to create healthier attachments and ways of thinking.
Marcos Rodrigues2 months ago
Great presentation! My question is, were there any studies or evidence that a child gender could also play a factor in self esteem development or a lack thereof?
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Madison Botelho1 month ago
Thank you for your interesting and informative presentation Jacqueline! I noticed the quite large range in age of participants in the first article you discussed, I wonder if age has any influence on the strength of this correlation between secure attachment and self esteem? This also leads me to wonder if the results of the study potentially discussed how age played into these findings?
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