Mary Main

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Mary Main (* 1943 ) is an American developmental psychologist and advocate of attachment theory .

Life

Mary Main earned her bachelor's degree in Classics and Science in 1968 from St. John's College in Annapolis , Maryland . She then studied psychology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore , including with Mary Ainsworth , and received her doctorate in 1973 with a Ph.D. in psychology. Her dissertation explore, play and cognitive function in the mother-child relationship ( exploration, Play and Cognitive Functioning as Related to Infant-Mother Attachment ) dealt with the consequences of different earlier ties to the mother. In the same year she became a professor at the University of California at Berkeley , where she holds a chair in psychology in the field of change, plasticity and development, and biopsychology . Her work focuses on attachment theory , the individual differences in relationships in discourse, drawing and narration, functional disorders of consciousness and ethology .

In addition to her professorship in Berkeley, she worked at the National Institute of Mental Health from 1972 to 1973 , from 1977 to 1978 at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research at Bielefeld University , from 1985 to 1986 at the University of Virginia and from 1995 to 1996 at the University of Leiden .

plant

In her early work in Berkeley, Main extended Ainsworth's identification system via attachment behavior (secure, insecure avoidance, insecure ambivalent) to include the attachment type D = insecurely disorganized. Children of this type lacked a coherent behavioral strategy to deal with stress during the Stranger Situation test and behaved disorganized and disoriented. The significance of this discovery lies in the connection found between early D-bonding and later social and mental health disorders such as susceptibility to psychopathology in children and adolescents or hostility towards partners in young adults.

For parents, Mary Main developed the Adult Attachment Interview in 1985 . It linguistically captures the attachment representation or the adult's attitude towards attachments. She discovered that the way parents talked about their childhood experiences with their own parents gave clues about how they would interact with their future children.

Awards

Fonts (selection)

  • Mary Main: Security and Knowledge (findings from her dissertation). In: Development of the ability to learn in the social environment. Edited by Klaus E. Grossmann . Kindler Verlag, Munich 1977, ISBN 3-463-02177-3 .
  • George Barlow, Lewis Petrinovich and Mary Main, edited by Klaus Immelmann: Behavioral Development in Humans and Animals. The Bielefeld project. Paul Parey Publisher 1982, ISBN 3489613368 .
  • E. Hesse and Mary Main: Disorganized attachment behavior in infants, children, and adults: breakdown of strategies of behavior and attention . I: K.-H. Brisch, KE Grossmann, K. Grossmann & L. Kohler (eds.): Attachments and spiritual development paths: Basics, prevention and clinical practice. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 978-3-608-94353-5 .
  • Mary Main: disorganization in attachment. In: G. Spangler & P. ​​Zimmermann (eds.): The attachment theory: Fundamentals, research and application. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1995, ISBN 978-3-608-94628-4 .
  • Mary Main: Recent Studies on Attachment. In: G. Gloger-Tippelt (Ed.): Bonding in adulthood: A manual for research and practice. Hans Huber Verlag, Bern 2000, ISBN 978-3-456-83414-6 .
  • Mary Main: Organized Infant, Child, and Adult Attachment Categories. In: K.-H. Brisch, KE Grossmann, K. Grossmann & L. Kohler (eds.): Attachments and spiritual development paths: Basics, prevention and clinical practice. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 978-3-608-94353-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ University of Gothenburg: Honorary doctorate for Mary Main 2007 with biography
personal data
SURNAME Main, Mary
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Main, Mary Biggar
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American developmental psychologist
DATE OF BIRTH 1943