Investigating the effect of mother-child attachment on child developmental areas using advanced analysis methods

Aim: The aim is examining the relationship between attachment to mother and psychosocial development as bibliometric, meta-analytic, meta thematic methods. Material and Method: WoS database was used to collect data for bibliometric phase of the study which designed with quantitative research model; R Studio, WoSviewer programs were used for analyzing data. WoS, Pubmed, Scopus databases were used to collect data for meta-analysis phase; JAMOVI, R software were used for analyzing data. Within the scope of bibliometric analysis, 2430 publications dealing with attachment and development together were analyzed. Within the scope of the meta-analysis, 20,326 articles were scanned at the title, abstract or full-text; 20 meta-analyses have done dealing with 12 different psychosocial development characteristics and attachment patterns. Results: With the bibliometric analysis conducted on the literature that dealing with attachment and development together, descriptive, social, intellectual structure of the field was determined; general profile, tendency of the field such as most effective countries, authors, collaborations, popular subject areas were revealed. It was found positively low level relationship between secure attachment in childhood and self-esteem, social competence, peer attachment, empathy, life satisfaction, prosocial behaviors; negatively low relationship between secure attachment and internalizing problems, anxiety, depression, negative affect, externalizing problems, crime. It was found positively low relationship between anxious attachment with internalizing/externalizing problems, anxiety, depression. It was found positively low relationship with avoidant and externalizing problems. Moderator analyses which done in scope of meta-analysis were not significant. Conclusion: While secure attachment to mother positively affects psychosocial development, insecure attachment negatively affects it. Keywords: Attachment, Bibliometric, Development, Meta-analysis, Psychosocial.