646 vI. SELF‑ AND S OCIAL P ROCESSES
keeping the baby at a distance from the par -
ents’ bodies). Children whose parents had 
been assigned to the close-  contact carrier 
condition were later more likely to be clas -
sified as secure in the Strange Situation than 
children whose parents received a plastic 
infant seat. Many experimental studies of 
nonhuman primates also demonstrate asso -
ciations between maternal sensitivity and in -
fant security and adaptation (Suomi, 2016), 
further suggesting that the infant–  mother 
relationship can have effects on the way the 
child organizes his or her attachment behav -
ior and regulates emotions.
Over the years, there have been debates 
regarding the extent to which the attach -
ment classifications are “merely” reflections 
of child temperament instead of capturing 
something about the way in which children 
organize their emotions and behavior based 
on the history of interactions with that fig -
ure. We discuss this issue in more detail in a 
subsequent section, because this is relevant 
to understanding individual differences in 
adult attachment as well. For now, however, 
we note that some scholars have observed 
only modest overlap between attachment 
classifications when children are tested sep -
arately with their mothers and with their 
fathers (Fox, Kimmerly, & Schafer, 1991). 
This suggests that attachment classifications 
tend to be relationship-  specific and, there -
fore, reflect the quality of the relationship 
between the infant and the parent. More -
over, most studies that have examined mea -
sures of temperament and attachment clas -
sifications have found weak or inconsistent 
associations between them (see Vaughn & 
Bost, 2016, for a review). This is not to say 
that temperament and parental relationships 
do not interact to affect a child’s attachment 
classification (see, e.g., Mangelsdorf, Gun -
nar, Kestenbaum, Lang, & Andreas, 1990), 
but such findings indicate that attachment 
classifications are not simply an alternative 
way of measuring temperament.
Developmental Sequelae and  the Canalization 
of Attachment
Over the past few decades there has been a 
great deal of developmental research on the 
implications of early attachment experienc -
es for interpersonal functioning (e.g., K. E. Grossmann, Grossmann, & Waters, 2005; 
Weinfield, Sroufe, Egeland, & Carlson, 
2008). Most of this research has focused 
on the longitudinal associations between 
parenting behavior or attachment classifica -
tions at 1 year of age and various later out -
comes of developmental significance, such 
as ego resiliency, the ability to get along 
well and cooperate with peers, the ability 
to solve problems effectively, and psychopa -
thology in adolescence (see Sroufe, Egeland, 
Carlson, & Collins, 2009, for a review). Al -
though there are exceptions, the majority of 
published studies demonstrate that early at -
tachment status is related to many outcomes 
of interest to psychologists, not only in early 
childhood but also in later adolescence and 
young adulthood (e.g., Roisman, Madsen, 
Hennighausen, Sroufe, & Collins, 2001). 
For example, Fraley, Roisman, and Halti -
gan (2013) found that sensitive caregiving 
in early childhood is consistently associated 
with behavioral and observational measures 
of social competence and academic achieve -
ment from kindergarten through age 15. Ma -
digan, Brumariu, Villani, Atkinson, and Ly -
ons-Ruth (2016) found, in a meta-  analysis, 
that early attachment security predicts in -
ternalizing behavior and externalizing be -
havior in later childhood and adolescence 
(see also Groh, Roisman, Van IJzendoorn, 
Bakermans-  Kranenburg, & Fearon, 2012).
Taken together, this and related research 
suggests that early attachment experienc -
es have diverse implications for social and 
emotional development. Of course, there are 
varying perspectives on what those associa -
tions mean. The most common interpreta -
tion is captured by the organizational  per-
spective (Sroufe, 1979) inspired by Bowlby’s 
discussion of developmental pathways. The 
organizational perspective holds that early 
attachment experiences serve as a founda -
tion on which subsequent experiences are 
built (e.g., Fraley & Roisman, 2015; Sroufe 
& Waters, 1977; Simpson, Collins, Farrell, 
& Raby, 2015). This foundation helps to 
organize or lend coherence to a variety of 
diverse social and emotional outcomes. For 
example, a child who develops the expec -
tation that others are trustworthy and re -
sponsive, based on his or her early caregiv -
ing experiences, might enter into new social 
relationships (e.g., with family, teachers, or 