DEVELOPMENTAL SURVEY OF YOUNG CHILDRENS ATTACHMENTS TO INANIMATE OBJECTS

This research provides a set of norms for young children’s attachments to inanimate objects. In Study 1, a maternal rating scale for pacifier-attachments was behaviorally validated in a standardized play setting (N = 16 male and female infants, accompanied by their mothers). The relation between pre-experimental ratings by mothers and pacifier sucking in a controlled playroom setting was high (r =.88). In Study 2, mothers of 690 children, aged 1.5 to 63 months, rated their children’s attachments to pacifiers, blankets, and hard objects. Data were presented in terms of intensities of attachments and the percentages of children evidencing either strong or weak attachments to the three objects. Pacifier-use declined from 3 to 24 months. Attachments to hard objects were relatively constant across age. Blanket-attachments were quadratically related to age, with greatest intensity occurring at 18 months. © 1979 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.