Attachment measures

Attachment measures refer to the various procedures used to assess attachment in children and adults.'It is by no means free of limitations (see Lamb, Thompson, Gardener, Charnov & Estes, 1984). To begin with, it is very dependent on brief separations and reunions having the same meaning for all children. This maybe a major constraint when applying the procedure in cultures, such as that in Japan (see Miyake et al.,, 1985), where infants are rarely separated from their mothers in ordinary circumstances. Also, because older children have a cognitive capacity to maintain relationships when the older person is not present, separation may not provide the same stress for them. Modified procedures based on the Strange Situation have been developed for older preschool children (see Belsky et al., 1994; Greenberg et al., 1990) but it is much more dubious whether the same approach can be used in middle childhood. Also, despite its manifest strengths, the procedure is based on just 20 minutes of behaviour. It can be scarcely expected to tap all the relevant qualities of a child's attachment relationships. Q-sort procedures based on much longer naturalistic observations in the home, and interviews with the mothers have developed in order to extend the data base (see Vaughn & Waters, 1990). A further constraint is that the coding procedure results in discrete categories rather than continuously distributed dimensions. Not only is this likely to provide boundary problems, but also it is not at all obvious that discrete categories best represent the concepts that are inherent in attachment security. It seems much more likely that infants vary in their degree of security and there is need for a measurement systems that can quantify individual variation'.'If you are a novice in this research area, what is most important for you to know is that self-report measures of romantic attachment and the AAI were initially developed completely independently and for quite different purposes. One asks about a person's feelings and behaviors in the context of romantic or other close relationships; the other is used to make inferences about the defenses associated with an adult's current state of mind regarding childhood relationships with parents. In principle, these might have been substantially associated, but in fact they seem to be only moderately related--at least as currently assessed. One kind of measure receives its construct validity mostly from studies of romantic relationships, the other from prediction of a person's child's behavior in Ainsworth's Strange Situation. Correlations of the two kinds of measures with other variables are likely to differ, although a few studies have found the AAI to be related to marital relationship quality and a few have found self-report romantic attachment measures to be related to parenting.' (Shaver & Fraley, 2004) Parental AAI Attachment status includes: Attachment measures refer to the various procedures used to assess attachment in children and adults. Researchers have developed various ways of assessing patterns of attachment in children. A variety of methods allow children to be classified into four attachment pattern groups: secure, anxious-ambivalent, anxious-avoidant, and disorganized/disoriented, or assess disorders of attachment. These patterns are also referred to as Secure (Group B); Anxious/Resistant (Group C); Avoidant (Group A) and Disorganized/Controlling (Group D). The disorganized/controlling attachment classification is thought to represent a breakdown in the attachment-caregiving partnership such that the child does not have an organized behavioral or representational strategy to achieve protection and care from the attachment figure. Each pattern group is further broken down into several sub-categories. A child classified with the disorganized/controlling attachment will be given a 'next best fit' organized classification. Attachment in adults is commonly measured using the Adult Attachment Interview, the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System, and self-report questionnaires. Self-report questionnaires assess attachment style, a personality dimension that describes attitudes about relationships with romantic partners. Adult attachment style is thought to be similar to childhood attachment patterns. There is some research that shows a link between childhood attachment patterns and attachment personality dimensions with romantic partners, but correlations are mild to moderate. The most common approach to defining attachment style is a two-dimension approach in defining attachment style. One dimension deals with anxiety about the relationship, and the other dimension dealing with avoidance in the relationship. Another approach defines four adult attachment style categories: secure, preoccupied, dismissive-avoidant, and fearful-avoidant.