Chapter 18: Measuring attachment in infancy/early adulthood
Organisation
- Overview of measures
- How well do available instruments actually reflect the construct of attachment security?
3 step process of constructing a measure
1. Operaliationalise construct of interest intuitively or through theory
2. Establish reliability of measure by looking at test-retest
3. Evaluate validity
Attachment security → a state of being secure an untroubled about the availability of the attachment figure (can
never be directly observed, it must be inferred from what is observable)
Attachment behaviours → those that increase proximity to or maintain contact with a particular attachment figure
Attachment System → Attachment behaviours are organised with respect to this internal control system.
Core theoretical predictions of attachment security:
1. Should be positively related to caregivers accessibility and responsiveness to the child
2. Should tend to remain stable over time (continuity)
3. Should predict other important aspects of development
4. Can be assessed using similar or parallel measures cross culturally and across attachment figures
The strange situation (Ainsworth) - 12-20 months of age (infants)
- Paradigm to assess attachment
- Consists of 8 episodes
- Critical are the reunion and separation
Styles derived from Strange Situation (1978)
- Secure
- Exploration: uses mother as secure base for exploration
- Separation: misses parent
- Reunion: actively greets parent
- Avoidant
- Exploration: explores readily, little secure-base behaviour
- Separation: responds minimally
- Reunion: looks away from/actively avoids parent
- Ambivalent/Resistant
- Exploration: distressed upon entrance, failing exploration
- Separation: Unsettled and distressed
- Reunion: fails to find comfort (angry rejection/tantrum/passive)
- Disorganised/Disoriented (added by Main & Solomon, 1990)
Reliability strange situation
- Requirement is 80% or higher, strange situation is high (85-100%)
- Ainsworth = very high
- Main & Solomon = relatively high
Short term stability (2-weeks)
- Not very stable, number of avoidant infants on retest shown behaviour patterns similar to disorganised
infants
- Separation of assessments by a month is recommended
Relation to other measures of security
- Well discrimination from eachother in the home
- Although 2 insecure groups, avoidant and ambivalent, were generally less well discriminated from each
other in home
Prediction to core variables
- Mother-child interaction → Differences in attachment styles among 4 inter-correlated variables:
sensitivity, acceptance, cooperation, psychological accessibility. Variation of categories is better explained
by mother-child interaction history than direct biological effects
- Mothers of secure attached infants = high on all 4 dimensions
- Mothers of avoidant infants = were not accepting but rejecting, little physical proximity
- Mothers of ambivalent infants = inconsistently responsive to infant distress
- Mothers of disorganised/disoriented = frightening or dissociative behaviour, disrupted
communication, neurological vulnerability
- Continuity → generally high stability (over 70%) have been reported across short and long time periods
- Changes in styles may reflect shifts in maternal sensitivity or family events such as loss, divorce
major illness, poverty (negatively) or marriage, new relationships (positively)
- Coherence → early attachment can influence later functioning including relationships with parents, peers,
romantic partners
- Avoidance ⇒ general internalising symptoms
- Disorganised ⇒ predicts dissociative/externalising behaviours
- Cross-cultural predictions → Although secure attachments appears to be normalised cross culturally,
cultural differences have emerged in the proportions of attachment groups
Two approaches to developing classification systems for attachment beyond infancy
- Approach 1: Continuity between infancy and older ages
- Approach 2: Dynamic-maturational model → focuses on dynamic changes in quality of attachment arising
from interaction between maturation and current experience. Emphasises possibilities for changes in
quality of attachment over time
PACS (preschool attachment classification system for preschoolers) - Cassidy, Marvin & MacArthur
- Secure group
- Insecure group
- Avoidant
- Ambivalent/resistant
- Controlling/disorganised → controlling behaviour (punitive, caregiving), or behaviours
associated with infant disorganisation
- Insecure/other
*Basically the same as Ainsworth but includes controlling/other
Relation to other measure of attachment security
- Related to AQS and to representational measures of attachment
Prediction to core variables
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