Conociendo los casos

in Chapter Five and subsequent chapters with respect to the dyadic attachment relationships between mother and child, and father and child), the influences o f other family relationships must also be taken into account. This is a view espoused by family systems theorists, such as Minuchin (1988) and Byng-HaU & Stevenson-Hinde (1991).

From a methodological point o f view, it is inq)ortant to control for other variables which might be affecting the attachment relationship; or, put in another way, it is iniportant to examine the immediate, and probably the most hrqportant, context in which attachment relationships develop - the family. There is much evidence to suggest that other family dynamics may be influencing the attachment relationships (for example, Belsky & Isabella, 1988; Radke-Yarrow et al., 1985), and, as Cicchetti et al. (1990) have pointed out, this is probably especially tme during the developmental period to which this thesis is addressed, the preschool years, a period during which children are active in expanding their social networks

well beyond the boundaries o f their relationship with mother. It is important to be aware o f the conq)lexity o f the interrelations between different family members, their associations and their independence.^ For example, although children's relationships with their mothers have been associated with their relationships with their siblings (Dunn & McGuire, 1982), these correlations are not very high and Dunn (1994) has discussed how other aspects o f these dyads are uncorrelated on dimensions such as causal talk. Stocker (1994) suggests that the different quahties o f these various relationships point to the unique flmction(s) that each relationship might serve in children's hves.

There is an additional reason as to why it is appropriate to turn to the family social context for the relationships \riiich are influencing the children, and the children’s attachment relationships, in the present study. At the time o f the theory o f mind assessments, most o f the children had only just started primary school full-time, so it might be argued that the relative influences o f relationships outside the family environment would, in the majority o f cases, be small.^ Nevertheless, many authors have pointed to the importance o f such influences, even for five-year-olds. For example, Dunn (1994) highhghted the importance o f pretend play with fiiends, Piaget (1932) and more recently Sehnan (1980) and Stocker (1994)

^ In this context, the data presented here are only crude assessments o f certain aspects o f these interrelations, and thus can only offer a limited picture.

^ Nevertheless, it is an important and regrettable caveat o f the present study that no information was gathered about the children's social context outside the immediate family, for example by obtaining teachers' ratings o f social maturity. This is especially so in fight o f previous research; Fonagy et al. (1995) found that social maturity was one o f the predictor variables o f children's performance on the Elfie task, and Chandler, Fritz & Hala (1991) found that individual differences in false-befief understanding covary with parents' and teachers' ratings o f social and interpersonal maturity.

have stressed the inçortance o f fiiendsh^s for preschoolers by way o f being dyadic, intimate and mutual relationships.

The development o f such friendships clearly changes the balance o f the farmly relationships in each o f these children's lives. However, it is likely that the balance o f relationships within each family has been through many other changes before the child has started school; for example, the effect o f the birth o f the first child on the couple and their relationship, and the effect o f the arrival o f the second or third child on the first child's relationship with their parents, and so on. It is these earher changing relationships that are the focus o f this chapter, with an emphasis on the emotional dimensions o f such changes (other than the attachment dimension), as recommended by Dunn (for exan^le. Brown & Dunn,

1991; Dunn, 1988)."

Previous research has suggested many ways in which children's close family relationships affect their development (for exanq)le. Stem, 1985; Trevarthen, 1979), but only recently have these been studied in relation to the child's developing theory o f mind abihties (see section 1.7.4. m Chapter One) (the Mitchell & Lewis, 1994 volume; Dunn et al., 1991a; Dunn, 1993; Mayes et al., 1993; Jenkins & Astington, in press; Pemer et al., 1994). For exançle, as was described in Chapter One, Judy Dunn's studies in particular"^ have revealed

"Obviously, the objective events themselves would impact on the relationships, and this data is embedded in the narratives o f the LEDS, data Wiich unfortunately were not coded and analysed in time to be included in this thesis.

"^Judy Dunn's studies are o f particular relevance since they primarily involve preschoolers. Obviously, for children over the age o f five, individual differences may be linked to a wider and differing variety o f factors, as suggested by other authors; for example, the emotional expressivity o f parents (Cassidy et aL, 1992), and social competence with peers (Gnepp, 1989). However, this thesis will focus on those studies involving children up until

several variables thought to influence individual differences in children's abihty to recognise and understand another person's feeling state: parent-child discourse o f internal states (Dunn, Brown & Beardsall, 1991a); sibling interactions (Brown & Dunn, 1982); parental verbal explanations (Dunn et al., 1987).

The selection o f measures presented in this chapter are based on the estabhshed significance o f relationships within the family for child development in general, as suggested by a family systems approach, as well as recent research Wiich has highhghted the importance o f particular relationships, or dimensions o f those relationships, for the child's developing theoiy o f mind. Whilst subsequent chapters will be devoted to consideration o f the various attachment aspects o f the parents and children in this study, and their associations to the children's developing theory o f mind abihties, the particular issues to be considered in this chapter revolve around both direct an indirect influences o f the family environment on the child's theory o f mind acquisition. The particular strength o f the longitudinal design o f this project wiU provide a unique picture over time o f the influences able to predict individual differences in theory o f mind abihty.

4.1.2. Parent-infant relationship: emotional state of parents towards this relationship