Beyond meta-analysis: a plea for a family systems view of attachment

Abstract

De Wolff and van Ijzendoorn's (1997) meta-analysis of parental antecedents of infant attachment focuses almost entirely on maternal behavior. I argue here that although the meta-analysis method makes an important contribution to summarizing research studies, it limits the conceptual understanding of attachment to simple causal models, and ignores family systems models that could illuminate our understanding of the development of secure and insecure attachment in children.