Relazione tra attaccamento e misure linguistiche computerizzate dell’attività referenziale. Uno studio esplorativo sulle narrative in età evolutiva

Narratives are considered to be the expression of the modality the mind uses to integrate various mental models of self and others.The study of narratives’ quality allows us to find out those mechanisms used by the mind to organize affects and thoughts and to build a coherent system. The linguistic formulation and the words’ affective connotation together seem to reflect the narrator’s personal experience. Aim: The goal of this study is to investigate the organization of narratives when attachment motivational system is active. The Referential Activity is a measure which shows when processing systems are integrated and the speaker’s emotions are aroused. The aim of the present study is to deepen the analysis of the narratives, together with the capacity of the child to integrate cognitive and affective aspects, to verify if the attachment model makes the expression of affects and the activation of referential capacity easier or more difficult. In particular, our aims are to explore if linguistic characteristics diversify narratives of: a) secure vs. insecure subjects; b) middle childhood (8-9 years old) vs. preadolescence (11-12 years old). Method: Participants are 100 children between the age of 8-12 years. The Separation Anxiety Test (SAT) was administered to each subject. Linguistic measures of the Referential Activity were applied to the verbatim transcripts produced by 100 subjects in response to SAT: the Italian Weighted Referential Activity Dictionary (I-WRAD), the Italian Affect dictionary (IAFF), the Italian Reflection dictionary (IREF), the Italian Disfluency Dictionary (IDF). Results: A series of analysis of variance and linear regressions were carried out. Results show a significant difference between secure and insecure attached subject in the capacity to express through attachment narratives affects. Specifically, it results that secure attached subjects differ from insecure ones in the capacity to express in words more affects, in particular more positive ones, but do not differ for negative affects.