A thorough examination of field-shaping research on attachment that serves as a valuable resource for understanding child developmental science and ethically applying its insights in practice.

Application of scientific findings to effective practice and informed policymaking is an aspiration for much research in the biomedical, behavioral, and developmental sciences. But too often translations of science to practice are conceptually narrow and developed quickly as salves to an urgent problem. For developmental science, widely implemented parenting interventions are prime examples of technical translations from knowledge about the causes of children’s mental distress. Aiming to support family relationships and facilitate adaptive child development, these programs are rushed through when the scientific findings on which they are based remain contested and without enough evidence of success from randomized controlled trials.

In Matters of Significance, the authors draw on forty years of experience with theoretical, empirical, meta-analytic, and translational work in child development research to highlight the complex relations between replication, translation, and academic freedom. They argue that challenging fake facts promulgated by under-replicated and underpowered studies is also a method of translation. Such a challenge can, in the highlighted field of attachment and emotion regulation research, bust popular myths about the decisive role of genes, hormones, or the brain on parenting and child development, with a balancing impact on practice and policy making. The authors argue that academic freedom from interference by pressure groups, stakeholders, funders, or university administrators in the core stages of research is a necessary but besieged condition for adversarial research and myth-busting.