Considerações evolucionistas sobre as relações entre imprevisibilidade, dimensões de apego e investimento parental em pais e mães brasileiros

Abstract

Childhood is fundamental for the construction of the first models of perception of the world, attachment, and psychological regulation, through the establishment of attachment relationships with primary caregivers and other social circles. Parental care is a major modulator in the early years of child development, and there is a correlation between parental investment and the formation of attachment patterns in offspring. The relationship between exposure to unpredictable contexts in childhood, however, and other psychological variables in adulthood, such as attachment styles, unpredictability beliefs, and parental investment, is still uncertain. Based on Life History Theory, we conducted a quantitative cross-sectional study with 582 fathers and mothers from several Brazilian states, in which we used as a basis the self-report of primary caregivers about their childhood environments, their unpredictability beliefs, attachment styles, and parental investment currently exhibited. We used as psychometric instruments the Scale of Family Unpredictability During Childhood (EIFI) and items from the Unpredictability/Harshness scales (Szepsenwol, 2020), the Scale of Unpredictability Beliefs (SUB), Experience in Close Relationships (ECR), and the Parental Investment Scale (EIP). We assessed whether (1) there is an influence of perceived unpredictability on attachment styles, unpredictability beliefs, and current parental investment, and whether (2) current unpredictability beliefs and attachment dimensions play an influence on parental investment. We found significant influences for assertions 1 and 2, and found the importance that unpredictability environments in childhood exert on the development of world perception, interpersonal relationships, and parental investment played by participants in adulthood. Caregiving 9 unpredictability was shown to be a powerful predictor for both beliefs, attachment, and parenting. Furthermore, unpredictability in general showed little explanatory effect on parental investment. But this effect was greater when we tested for attachment and beliefs. We believe that unpredictability in childhood modulates parental investment in an indirect way, and that a mediating relationship may exist.