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UBC Theses and Dissertations
Childhood maltreatment experiences and adult attachment style in male offenders Sirkia, T. Diane
Abstract
John Bowlby began to study childhood maltreatment, attachment and offending behavior many years before he conceived of attachment theory; through work with maladjusted children he came to believe that actual family experiences were key factors in the etiology of emotional disturbances. The present study examined the childhood maltreatment experiences and adult attachment representations, as defined by Bartholomew (1990) of 40 adult male offenders incarcerated at a medium security federal institution in the Fraser Valley. A control group, of 23 University of British Columbia male undergraduates, was also examined. Childhood maltreatment and other familial experiences were gathered using a modified version of the Family Attachment Interview (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991); adult attachment representations were assessed using the Peer Attachment Interview (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991), and coded using the four-category attachment framework developed by Bartholomew (1990). Participants also completed a questionnaire package that will not be analyzed for purposes of this thesis. It was found that the offender sample did experience significantly more childhood maltreatment on 5 of the 6 maltreatment variables than did the undergraduate sample; however no significant difference was found on the emotional neglect variable. In terms of attachment representations, results indicate that the inmate population is significantly more insecure in their attachment representations than are the university undergraduates; however, when compared to similar samples in the literature, both groups were significantly different in their attachment representations. Significant differences in childhood maltreatment, and attachment representation were not found. Discussion focuses on the limitations of the present samples, the need for future research on this issue with larger samples, and the usefulness of the attachment paradigm in understanding the impact of childhood maltreatment and family of origin variables on offenders; from both treatment and risk management perspectives.
Item Metadata
Title |
Childhood maltreatment experiences and adult attachment style in male offenders
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Creator | |
Publisher |
University of British Columbia
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Date Issued |
2000
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Description |
John Bowlby began to study childhood maltreatment, attachment and offending
behavior many years before he conceived of attachment theory; through work with
maladjusted children he came to believe that actual family experiences were key factors
in the etiology of emotional disturbances. The present study examined the childhood
maltreatment experiences and adult attachment representations, as defined by
Bartholomew (1990) of 40 adult male offenders incarcerated at a medium security
federal institution in the Fraser Valley. A control group, of 23 University of British
Columbia male undergraduates, was also examined. Childhood maltreatment and other
familial experiences were gathered using a modified version of the Family Attachment
Interview (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991); adult attachment representations were
assessed using the Peer Attachment Interview (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991), and
coded using the four-category attachment framework developed by Bartholomew (1990).
Participants also completed a questionnaire package that will not be analyzed for
purposes of this thesis. It was found that the offender sample did experience significantly
more childhood maltreatment on 5 of the 6 maltreatment variables than did the
undergraduate sample; however no significant difference was found on the emotional
neglect variable. In terms of attachment representations, results indicate that the inmate
population is significantly more insecure in their attachment representations than are the
university undergraduates; however, when compared to similar samples in the literature,
both groups were significantly different in their attachment representations. Significant
differences in childhood maltreatment, and attachment representation were not found.
Discussion focuses on the limitations of the present samples, the need for future research
on this issue with larger samples, and the usefulness of the attachment paradigm in
understanding the impact of childhood maltreatment and family of origin variables on
offenders; from both treatment and risk management perspectives.
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Extent |
6133990 bytes
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Genre | |
Type | |
File Format |
application/pdf
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Language |
eng
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Date Available |
2009-07-20
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Provider |
Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
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Rights |
For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.
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DOI |
10.14288/1.0099507
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URI | |
Degree | |
Program | |
Affiliation | |
Degree Grantor |
University of British Columbia
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Graduation Date |
2000-11
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Campus | |
Scholarly Level |
Graduate
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Aggregated Source Repository |
DSpace
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Item Media
Item Citations and Data
Rights
For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.