Bonding, Trust, and Self-Confidence

The present contribution is concerned with the thesis that the emergence and development of both interpersonal trust and self-confidence is fundamentally interrelated with the development of attachment. Attachment quality observed in the behavior of young children is described as a first expression of the formation of inter-personal trust. The mental representation of attachment develops into a generalized, experience-based attitude towards a child's social context of significant others. In the course of human development, it is extended ever more explicitly into a theory on trust-worthiness and benevolence of the social environment, and it plays an important role with regard to the self-concept. The results of our study on 9-year-old children indicate in how far differences between children with secure or insecure attachment can be identified in regard to their observed self-confidence and to their state-ments about trustful relationships.