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My wife is the one who does this for a living - but my understanding is that, for example, 1) disorganized attachment is not predictive of later social, emotion

My wife is the one who does this for a living - but my understanding is that, for example, 1) disorganized attachment is not predictive of later social, emotional, educational and mental health problems but is a moderate to significant risk factor, 2) infant disorganized attachment expression should not be used to assume parental abuse, but has a strong correlation with parent-child relationships featuring abuse, neglect, emotional dependency, etc., 3) while a risk factor, other safe/stable/nuturing relationships early in life can mitigate the negative potential effects. I don’t have specific citations, and I’m not arguing it’s rock solid, settled science, but suggesting parent-child relationships may have no effect at all is out on the edge of reasonable.

kqr 6y ago
Despite what one may think, I agree with most of what you said. Only with some additional observations: 1) We would expect attachment problems to be a risk factor purely based on genetics and environment. Which is indeed what we find. Personality traits like that have stronger correlation with a) your biological parents than the parents you grew up with, and b) your friends' parents than the parents you grew up with. 2) Absolutely. The way a child views their relationship with their parents is a huge signal about what their relationship with their parents is like. 3) Yes, because environment effects are the next most important thing, after genetics. Genetics and environment outside of the home is strongly correlated with parent relationship, which is why this is so hard to study and get right. It is possible to control for those factors though, and the result is surprising -- but makes sense from an evolutionary hunter-gatherer perspective.