Perceptions of parental bonding, adult attachment, and marital adjustment in prospective adoptive parents. An empirical study in the pre-adoptive period

Adoptive parents face unique developmental and family challenges during the transition to adoptive parenthood. The study reported in this paper investigated the first transitional phase of parenthood, namely the early preadoptive period. We compared 60 prospective adoptive parents (30 couples) with a control group of 30 childless couples of prospective nonadoptive parents. Participants were evaluated by specific measures mainly from the attachment theory viewpoint, such as PBI, ECR, and DAS questionnaires. Results showed that prospective adoptive parents clearly reported more positive perceived parental characteristics of their own parents (i.e., more maternal and parental care), more adult attachment security (i.e., low anxiety and low avoidance), and higher levels of marital adjustment (i.e., higher levels of dyadic adjustment, dyadic consensus, dyadic cohesion, and affective expression) than prospective nonadoptive parents. Our findings were discussed in light of the literature in this field of the past 50 years.