Parental reflective functioning is thought to provide a missing link between caregivers’ own attachment histories and their ensuing parenting behaviors. The current study sought to extend research on this association involving 115 parents, both mothers and fathers, of 5-to-6-year-old preschoolers using the German version of the Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (PRFQ). Our study was the first to combine Adult Attachment Interview classifications of parental attachment, behavioral observations of parental sensitivity and PRFQ ratings while drawing on a sizable father subsample. We found theoretically consistent significant relations between all measures, while our results particularly highlighted the role of dismissing attachment for decreases in parenting quality on both cognitive and behavioral levels as the dismissing status differentially affected specific components of self-reported parental reflective functioning and observed sensitivity. Interestingly, these patterns were largely comparable in mothers and fathers. Exploratory mediation analyses further suggested that decreased parental reflective functioning may partially mediate the relationship between parents’ dismissing attachment and decreased parental sensitivity. Thus, for prevention and intervention programs targeting parental sensitivity and thus children’s long term healthy mental development, the interplay between parental reflective functioning and parents’ own attachment history emerges as a key mechanism. Finally, our study served as a further validation of the PRFQ given the caveat that the pre-mentalizing subscale may need further revision in the German version.

父母的反思功能被认为在照顾者自己的依恋历史和随后的养育行为之间提供了一个缺失的联系。目前的研究试图使用德语版的家长反思功能问卷 (PRFQ) 扩大对这一关联的研究，涉及 115 名 5 至 6 岁学龄前儿童的父母，包括母亲和父亲。我们的研究首次结合了成人依恋访谈对父母依恋的分类、父母敏感性的行为观察和 PRFQ 评级，同时利用了相当大的父亲子样本。我们发现所有测量值之间在理论上存在一致的显着关系，而我们的结果特别强调了消除依恋对于认知和行为水平上养育质量下降的作用，因为消除依恋状态对自我报告的父母反思功能和观察到的敏感性的特定组成部分有不同的影响。有趣的是，母亲和父亲的这些模式在很大程度上具有可比性。探索性中介分析进一步表明，父母反思功能的下降可能部分调节了父母排斥依恋与父母敏感性下降之间的关系。因此，对于针对父母敏感性以及儿童长期健康心理发展的预防和干预计划，父母反思功能与父母自身依恋历史之间的相互作用成为一个关键机制。最后，我们的研究进一步验证了 PRFQ，因为需要注意德国版本中的预心智化子量表可能需要进一步修订。