Sleeping Out of Home in a Kibbutz Communal Arrangement: It Makes a Difference for Infant‐Mother Attachment

Attachment classification distributions of infant‐mother dyads living in 2 types of Israeli kibbutzim were compared. The subjects were 48 infants, 14–22 months old (M= 18.29 months); 13 boys and 10 girls were from 23 kibbutz infants' houses with communal sleeping arrangements, and 13 boys and 12 girls were from 25 kibbutz infants' houses with home‐based sleeping arrangements. The 2 groups did not differ on infants' temperament and early life events, mother‐infant play interaction, quality of infants' daytime environment, or any of several maternal variables. Among the home‐based infants, 80% were securely attached to their mothers versus 48% of the infants in communal sleeping arrangements. No avoidant relationships were found. Including the disorganized‐disoriented attachment classification (44% in the communal group, 32% in the home‐based group) did not change the results. We argue that the communal sleeping arrangement presents a child‐rearing environment that deviates markedly from the environment of evolutionary adaptedness.