Mental Representations of Attachment in Identical Female Twins with and without Conduct Problems

Insecure mental representations of attachment, a nearly invariant feature of cluster B personality disorders, have never previously been studied in twins. We conducted the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) on 33 pairs of monozygotic (MZ) female twins reared together as an initial exploration of causa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Child psychiatry and human development 2006-09, Vol.37 (1), p.65-72
Main Authors: Constantino, John N, Chackes, Laura M, Wartner, Ulrike G, Gross, Maggie, Brophy, Susan L, Vitale, Josie, Heath, Andrew C
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Adult Attachment Interview
Aggression
Attachment
Attachment Behavior
Behavior Problems
Biological and medical sciences
Causal Influences
Cognition
Concordance
Conduct Disorder - epidemiology
Conduct Disorder - psychology
Conduct disorders
Consciousness
Demography
Environmental aspects
Environmental Influences
Female
Females
Genetics
Humans
Interviews
Medical sciences
Mental representation
Object Attachment
Observer Variation
Perception
Personality disorders
Personality Problems
Prevalence
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Social behavior disorders. Criminal behavior. Delinquency
Twins
Twins, Monozygotic - psychology
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Summary:Insecure mental representations of attachment, a nearly invariant feature of cluster B personality disorders, have never previously been studied in twins. We conducted the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) on 33 pairs of monozygotic (MZ) female twins reared together as an initial exploration of causal influences on mental representations of attachment. As predicted by attachment theory, we observed substantial twin-twin concordance for attachment security (odds ratio 13.8; P = 0.001), a similar level of concordance between twins and their non-twin siblings, and an inverse relationship between attachment security and current level of aggression (P = 0.01). These data indicate that there are minimal effects of non-shared environmental influences (or measurement error) on attachment classifications derived from the AAI. In this sample of twins with and without histories of Conduct Disorder, mental representations of attachment appear to be highly familial, i.e., strongly influenced by either shared environmental factors, genetic factors, or both.
ISSN:0009-398X
1573-3327
DOI:10.1007/s10578-006-0020-y