A comprehensive examination of parent-child attachment talk during early preschool years: The role of emotional-open communication

This dissertation project systematically examined parent-child attachment-related conversations during the early preschool years, and the role of some factors that influence the quality of such interactional process. Specifically, the project includes two studies, the first study described parental verbalization characteristics of their tendencies to lead cooperative conversations about attachment-related events with their young preschoolers (i.e., 2-3 years old) from pragmatic and semantic perspectives. Parental gender differences and similarities were examined as well. The second study identified potential factors associated with parental verbal tendencies in leading social-emotional conversations with their young preschoolers; specifically, parental secure base script knowledge and child temperament were considered in their associations with mother-child and father-child attachment talk. Results and discussion were represented separately.