A new look at the relations between attachment and intelligence

In this paper we offer a new perspective on the relations between attachment and intelligence, a topic that has received relatively little attention in the recent decades of attachment research. Based on a review of relevant empirical work, a reanalysis of published data, and novel theoretical arguments, we advance a revised model of attachment and intelligence that challenges a number of widespread assumptions in the field. Specifically, we argue that attachment in infancy and childhood is influenced by general intelligence (with lower cognitive ability in ambivalent and disorganized categories compared with secure and avoidant ones), and that attachment states of mind in adulthood show a parallel pattern (with lower cognitive ability in preoccupied and unresolved/unclassifiable categories). The partially genetic correlation between parent and child intelligence gives rise to a previously unrecognized causal pathway linking parents' states of mind to children's attachment; parental intelligence also predicts aspects of sensitivity and mentalizing, and thus exerts an additional indirect influence on children's attachment. Our revised model suggests that intelligence likely contributes to the "transmission gap" between parental state of mind and child attachment; it also offers a novel (partial) explanation of the increased levels of parent-child concordance observed in older children.