BACKGROUND Middle childhood is a significant period of change both for a child's cognition and social functioning. Considering that the primary developmental theme of attachment in middle childhood is the balance between child's growing autonomy and the constant need of relatedness, cultural differences in developmental trends in the attachment might be considered as a function of individualism and collectivism orientations. However, little is known about whether the findings on predictors of individual differences in the attachment in middle childhood found in Western cultures, hold within the non-Western ones. Moreover, still little is known about differences between attachment to mothers and fathers in middle childhood. Hence, one goal of the present study was to investigate the role of a child's age, sex, and emotionality in a middle-childhood attachment to mothers and fathers in the Polish sample. The second aim was to compare obtained results to the attachment research that focused on Western cultures. METHODS The sample consisted of 132 children aged 8-12 years (51% boys). They completed the Kern's Security Scale and the Coping Strategies Questionnaire. Mothers completed a child's EAS-C and short sociodemographic questionnaire. Pearson's correlations were conducted to test relationships between a child's age, sex, emotionality, SES, and attachment-related variables. A paired-samples t-test was used to compare the intensity of preoccupied and avoidant coping strategies with parents in the whole sample. The effects of a child's age, sex, temperament, and attachment figure were tested with separate repeated-measures ANOVA. RESULTS Some of the results replicated prior studies conducted in Western cultures. Similarly to the individualistic cultures, older Polish children reported less preoccupied and more avoidant coping strategies with their parents than younger children. Second, older girls reported higher felt-security with their fathers than with mothers, which suggests some significant changes in attachment relationships regarding the child's sex. However, as opposed to Western cultures, there were no links between the child's sex and preoccupied and avoidant coping. Polish children also reported higher rates of preoccupied coping than the avoidant one. Finally, children with relatively lower emotionality reported higher attachment security with both parents than children with relatively higher emotionality. CONCLUSIONS The current study extends previous work on attachment in middle childhood, the area of rather sparse research, as compared to other developmental periods. The findings reveal the existence of both some specificity in the middle-child attachment in the Polish sample, as well as some culture-universal developmental trends. However, as many questions remain unanswered, they also highlight the strong need for future cross-cultural and comparative studies.

中文翻译：

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童年中期对父母的依恋：波兰样本的证据。

背景技术对于儿童的认知和社交功能而言，童年中期是重要的变化时期。考虑到儿童中期依恋的主要发展主题是儿童自主能力的增长与对亲密关系的不断需求之间的平衡，依恋的发展趋势中的文化差异可被视为个人主义和集体主义倾向的函数。然而，对于西方文化中发现的关于童年中期依恋个体差异的预测因素的发现是否在非西方文化中是否成立还鲜为人知。此外，关于中年儿童对父母的依恋差异还知之甚少。因此，本研究的目标之一是调查孩子的年龄，性别，波兰样本中的童年时代对父母的依恋和情感。第二个目的是将获得的结果与专注于西方文化的依恋研究进行比较。方法样本由132名8-12岁的儿童组成（51％的男孩）。他们完成了科恩的安全量表和应对策略问卷调查。母亲填写了孩子的EAS-C和简短的社会人口统计学调查表。进行皮尔逊相关性测试儿童年龄，性别，情绪，SES和依恋相关变量之间的关系。配对样本t检验用于比较整个样本中父母的先入为主和回避应对策略的强度。使用单独的重复测量方差分析（ANOVA）测试了孩子的年龄，性别，性情和依恋状况的影响。结果一些结果重复了以前在西方文化中进行的研究。与个人主义文化相似，波兰的年长儿童与年幼的儿童相比，与父母的关注度更低，而回避的应对策略则更多。其次，年长的女孩报告说，父亲对母亲的安全感要比母亲高，这表明在与孩子性别有关的依恋关系上有一些重大变化。但是，与西方文化相反，孩子的性别与全神贯注和回避的应对方式之间没有联系。波兰儿童还报告说，他们比那些回避者的注意力更集中。最后，与情绪相对较高的孩子相比，情绪较低的孩子与父母双方的依恋安全性更高。结论与其他发展时期相比，当前的研究扩展了先前关于中年儿童依恋的研究，这是研究相对稀疏的领域。这些发现揭示了波兰样本中初中生依恋的某些特殊性以及一些普遍的文化发展趋势。然而，由于许多问题仍未得到解答，它们也凸显了对未来跨文化和比较研究的强烈需求。