SSRP Abstract

Meta-Analysis of Child/Parent Attachment

Student: Karli Bigler ’21
Research Mentor: Leah Manning (OWU Department of Psychology)

The attachment relationship between child and parent has been shown to have a crucial impact on development and psychological well-being. While research has investigated this relation, no comprehensive review has investigated the impact of child–parent attachment relationship across all ages. The purpose of this study is to eventually conduct a meta-analysis investigating the various ways the child–parent relationship impacts a child’s life outcomes. A scoping review using PyschINFO gathered all published studies on child–parent attachment and measures of attachment (e.g., AAI, SSP, AICA). Approximately 16,000 studies have currently been gathered, with this process ongoing. The next steps include organizing these studies into groups based on shared characteristics. Multiple meta-analyses will be completed on these smaller organized subsets. The findings will draw general conclusions about the way that research has addressed the impact of the bidirectional child–parent attachment relationship and which topics have been investigated up to date on child–parent attachment.

My research seeks to shed light on how the relationship between child and parent impacts a child's development and psychological well-being. By gathering results from over 16,000 published studies on this topic, multiple meta-analysis will be created. This will allow us to draw general conclusions about how the relationship between child and parent influences the child.