Comparative study of attachment styles in mothers of 8 to 12 yearold children with and without behavioral problems

Introduction: as the major attachment figures, mothers have an undeniable effect on behavioral development ofchildren. the present study aims to investigate the relationship between attachment styles in mothers of 8 to 12 year-oldchildren with and without behavioral problems.materials and methods: the samples of this causal-comparative study included 120 mothers of male and femaleelementary school students in schools of neishabour (2013-14). cluster sampling and random sampling methods wereused for mothers of children with and without behavioral problems respectively. the study instruments included therutter's behavior scale for children and the revised adult attachment scale (raas) for mothers. data were analyzedusing spss 18, by independent samples t-test, and logistic regression.results: there is a significant difference between anxious and secure attachment styles in mothers of children with andwithout behavioral problems (p=0.0001 and p=0.001 respectively). however, there is no significant difference betweenavoidant attachment style in mothers of children with and without behavioral problems (p=0.138). the results ofregression analysis also show that anxious and secure attachment styles can be considered as predictors of behavioralproblems in children.conclusion: the findings of the present study corroborate the attachment theory and show the importance of motherchildinteraction. mothers’ secure and insecure attachment styles can be an important predictor for behavioral problemsin their children