Self-characterization and attachment style: A creative method of investigating children’s construing

This study had the aims of evaluating the self characterization technique as a research instrument with school-age children and investigating whether and how representations of self and others vary as a function of age, gender and attachment style. Self characterizations completed by 103 Italian children, 47 boys and 56 girls, aged between 7 and 11 years, were analyzed using an ad hoc coding grid. The Separation Anxiety Test was administered to evaluate children’s attachment style. Age predicted the process of construing as well as specific content features of the texts, such as level of abstraction and the type of construct used. In addition, gender was related to the construing process and the expression of emotion, while attachment style was associated mainly with stability of self-image and representation of relationships, and in consequence, the emotional aspects of identity.