Under this model, McCauley and colleagues maintain that attachment theory can be reframed as a theory of emotion regulation.  Drawing from Sroufe (1983), they state four basic assumptions to this perspective:

1.      Individuals are innately disposed to form intimate (attachment) relationships, and development takes place within the context of these relationships.

2.      It is within the earliest relationships that children learn about themselves as reflected by their caregivers.  These early understandings of self and others will become the prototypes for later relationships.

3.      Early prototypes are carried forward as the result of attitudes and expectations the child forms about the likely responses of others, and the likely result of the child’s personal efforts to cope with stress (regulate their emotions and get their needs met).

4.      The organization of attachment and emotion-regulating styles should therefore be consistent across subsequent developmental stages (McCauley et al., 1995, pp. 60-61).

In other words, the type of attachment that evolves will be determined largely by the type of responsiveness a child receives from his or her parents (McCauley et al., 1995).

            Under this view, attachment style is formed in infancy and contains within it a set of feelings which surround rules and strategies for recognizing distress, seeking support, and regulating emotion.  A cognitive schema of the self is also seen as developing as an outgrowth of the attachment style.  For example, a neglected child will develop an expectation that in times of distress, others will not be responsive to his or her needs (McCauley et al., 1995).

            There appears to be little evidence confirming the fourth assumption of the model that emotion-regulating styles are consistent across developmental stages.  McCauley and colleagues (1995) do not cite any longitudinal studies and this casts doubt on the assertion that infant attachment styles predict coping style or emotional regulation at all subsequent stages of development.  Furthermore, adolescence may be a unique stage that involves the recapitulation of all previous developmental tasks (Erikson, 1980).  In other words, adolescence may provide unique opportunities for the child to build on and modify his or her attachment style.  If so, there may be more malleability to the coping styles of children than what is seen in the theoretical framework proposed by McCauley and colleagues.

            Nevertheless, this model is important because it (1) integrates both attachment theory and cognitive theory; and (2) helps to explain the differing responses of children to stressors in terms of internal vulnerability threshold.  For example, a 12-year-old boy may have developed a style of coping with distress that views negative events as primarily related to negative traits in himself (e.g., “I’m a loser.”).  Through his attachment experiences, he may have developed a style of emotional regulation that includes ineffectual strategies for soliciting help from caregivers (e.g., angrily demanding attention through misbehavior).  If his parents have less stress and more time, they may be more able to compensate for his poor strategies by taking initiative to help him.  Conversely, if the parents have negative affect due to commuting stress and less time with which to facilitate an emotionally satisfying resolution, then the negative consequences (e.g., depressed affect) may be greater for the child.

Stress, Anxiety, and Depression

            We have seen that the strain of commuting involves anxiety and depressed mood associated with stress.  We may conceptualize the prolonged strain of high impedance commuting as resulting in a stress-induced dysphoria.  With respect to adolescent depression, Stark, Kaslow, and Laurent (1993) posed the question, “Are we assessing depression or the broad-band construct of negative affectivity?”   This is an important question, since recent reviews of the literature show extensive evidence for the comorbidity of depressive and anxiety disorders in children (Brady & Kendall, 1992; King, Gullone, & Ollendick, 1990).  Treatment approaches giving recognition to the comorbidity of depression and anxiety disorders appear to be more effective, since the treatment plan can be tailored to the individual symptom constellation of the child covering a broader band than Major Depressive Disorder (Kendall, Kortlander, Chansky, & Brady, 1992).

            While there appear to be several useful inventories and interviews for measuring anxiety and depression in children and adolescents (Roberts, Vargo, & Ferguson, 1989), differentiating anxiety from depression is more difficult.  Stark and colleagues (1993) found that in four groups of children from grades 4 to 7, the three clinical groups (anxiety only, depression only, and comorbid anxiety and depression) were all distinguished from a nonclinical control group through the use of the Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI) and the Revised Children’s Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMA).  But these measures failed to distinguish the three clinical groups from each other.  Other studies suggest that in children and adolescents there is a basis for a broader anxiety-depressive  syndrome (Stavrakaki & Ellis, 1989; Tannenbaum, Forehand, & Thomas, 1992).  At a minimum, it should be recognized that there is a significant overlap between anxiety and depression in children (King, Ollendick, & Gullone, 1991).