L'organisation cognitive du système d'attachement des adolescents et leurs perceptions de l'encadrement dyadique en tutorat.

Examined the relationships between adolescents' attachment, cognitive organization, and their perceptions of control and support in an academic mentoring relationship. 98 students involved in a volunteer mentoring program were interviewed using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). Perceptions of security and control in the mentor-student relationship and perceptions of the program effectiveness were also assessed at the end of the program and 4 mo later. Results show that both adolescents' dismissing and preoccupied strategies in the AAI were negatively associated with their interpersonal perceptions of the mentoring experience. Some of these relationships were moderated by the sex of the dyad (same-sex vs opposite-sex). These findings are discussed in light of theoretical postulates of attachment theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Maternal attachment representations, maternal sensitivity, and the infant–mother attachment relationship.

The role of maternal sensitivity as a mediator accounting for the robust association between maternal attachment representations and the quality of the infant-mother attachment relationship was examined. Sixty mother-infant dyads were observed at home and in the Strange Situation at 13 months, and mothers participated in the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) within the next 6 months. A strong association was found between AAI and Strange Situation classifications. and autonomous mothers were more sensitive at home than were nonautonomous mothers. Mothers in secure relationships were more sensitive at home than mothers in nonsecure relationships. Likewise, infants in secure relationships were more secure as assessed by the Waters' Attachment Q sort than infants in nonsecure relationships. A test of the mediational model revealed that maternal sensitivity accounted for 17% of the relation between AAI and Strange Situation classifications. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

L'Entrevue sur l'Attachement à l'age Adulte: Fondements théoriques, qualités métrologiques et champs d'application.

This article reviews the current state of research on the Adult Attachment Interview. It begins with the main theoretical notions of both adolescent and adult attachment, then describes the attachment interview and different types of attachment. Next it presents a critical review of psychometric properties of the AAI. This article concludes with recommendations the future validation of the AAI and for its appropriate use. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attachment representations in mothers, fathers, adolescents, and clinical groups: A meta-analytic search for normative data.

This meta-analysis on 33 studies, including more than 2,000 Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) classifications, presents distributions of AAI classifications in samples of nonclinical fathers and mothers, in adolescents, in samples from different cultures, and in clinical groups. Fathers, adolescents, and participants from different countries show about the same distribution of AAI classifications as nonclinical mothers do. The distribution of nonclinical mothers is as follows: 24% dismissing, 58% autonomous, and 18% preoccupied mothers. About 19% of the nonclinical mothers are unresolved with respect to loss or trauma of other kinds. Mothers from low socioeconomic status show more often dismissing attachment representations and unresolved loss or trauma. Autonomous women and autonomous men are more often married to each other than can be expected by chance, and the same goes for unresolved men and women. Clinical participants show highly deviating distributions of AAI classifications, with a strong overrepresentation of insecure attachment representations, but systematic relations between clinical diagnosis and type of insecurity are absent. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When "New" Meets "Old": Configurations of Adult Attachment Representations and Their Implications for Marital Functioning.

Two studies addressed the implications of concordance versus discrepancy of attachment representations in individuals at 2 stages in their marital relationships. Engaged (n = 157) and dating (n = 101) couples participated in a multimethod 6-year longitudinal study of adult attachment. Individuals completed the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), the Current Relationship Interview (CRI), and various questionnaires and were observed in interactions with partners. On the basis of AAI and CRI classifications, participants were placed in one of four groups: SecureAAI/SecureCRI, SecureAAI/lnsecureCRI, InsecureAAI/SecureCRI, or InsecureAAI/InsecureCRI. Each of the configurations showed a particular pattern of behavior, feelings about relationships and the self, and likelihood of relationship breakup. The findings of the studies address important points about the protective effects of attachment security and have interesting implications for the extension of attachment theory into adulthood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adult attachment classification and self-reported psychiatric symptomatology as assessed by the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory--2.

This study examined differences in self-reported psychiatric symptomatology on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 according to adult attachment status on the Adult Attachment Interview in first-time mothers from a high-risk poverty sample. Participants reported fairly high levels of symptomatology regardless of attachment status. The dismissing adult attachment group reported comparatively little psychiatric distress, emphasized independence, and scored the lowest on self-reported anxiety. The preoccupied group was highest on a range of indices of psychiatric symptoms indicative of self-perceived distress and relationship problems. The autonomous group's scores ranged between the scores of the other 2 groups on most scales. These different symptom patterns are consistent with adult attachment status as an index of self-representation and as a set of strategies for processing emotions and thoughts related to distress and to attachment relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Negative affect and the reporting of physical symptoms among college students.

This study examined relations between negative affect and the reporting of physical symptoms for a group of college students by empirically deriving, through cluster analyses, two profiles that differed in their levels of trait anxiety, trait anger, and depressive symptoms, and then evaluating differences in symptom reporting between these two profiles. Analyses revealed that persons with an elevated profile of negative affect reported being bothered by physical complaints statistically more often than those persons with the converse profile. Additional analyses indicated that the relation between levels of negative affect and physical complaints was mediated by trait anxiety. Physical symptom reporting is discussed in the context of its being a possible correlate of neuroticism. The mediating role of anxiety and implications for counseling are also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mothers' attachment status as determined by the Adult Attachment Interview predicts their 6-year-olds' reunion responses: A study conducted in Japan.

Following a 1986 study reporting a predominance of ambivalent attachment among insecure Sapporo infants, the generalizability of attachment theory and methodologies to Japanese samples has been questioned. In this 2nd study of Sapporo mother-child dyads (N=43), the authors examined attachment distributions for both (a) child, based on M. Main and J. Cassidy's (1988) 6th-year reunion, and (b) adult, via the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). In contrast to the previous Sapporo study, children's 3-way or "organized" distribution did not differ from the global distribution. However, when the disorganized-controlling (D) and cannot classify (CC) categories were applied to the analyses, a high proportion of D/CC children was found. Comparable analyses for Japanese mothers, including the unresolved/disorganized (U) and CC categories, were found to deviate slightly from the global norm. However, turning from global distributions to mothers' AAI classification as related to their child's reunion classification, all matches were surprisingly close to those established worldwide. When, as is customary, mothers' U and CC classifications were combined (U/CC) and compared with the child's D and CC classifications (also customarily combined as D/CC), mothers' U/CC status strongly predicted child D/CC status (r=.60, d=1.50). Additionally, mothers' AAI subclassifications predicted child subclassifications. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stability of attachment representations: The transition to marriage.

This study examined the stability of adult attachment representations across the transition to marriage. One hundred fifty-seven couples were assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI; C. George, N. Kaplan, & M. Main, 1985), the Current Relationship Interview (J. A. Crowell & G. Owens, 1996), and measures describing relationship functioning and life events 3 months prior to their weddings and 18 months into their marriages. The authors tested the hypotheses that attachment classifications are stable and that change is related to experiences in the relationship and/or life events; 78% of the sample received the same primary AAI classification (secure, preoccupied, and dismissing) at both times. Change was toward increased security and was associated with feelings and cognitions about the relationship. Only 46% of participants initially classified as unresolved retained the classification. Stability of the unresolved classification was associated with stressful life events and relationship aggression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Adult Attachment Interview and self-reports of attachment style: An empirical rapprochement.

Although 10 studies have been published on the empirical overlap of the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) and measures of self-reported attachment style, results in this literature have been inconsistently interpreted in narrative reviews. This report was designed as a rapprochement of the AAI and attachment style literatures and includes 3 studies. Study 1 (combined N = 961) is a meta-analytic review showing that by J. Cohen's (1992) criteria (mean r = .09), the association between AAI security and attachment style dimensions is trivial to small. Study 2 (N = 160) confirms meta-analytic results with state-of-the-art assessments of attachment security and also examines attachment dimensions in relation to the Big 5 personality traits. Finally, Study 3 is an investigation of 50 engaged couples that shows that developmental and social psychological measures of attachment security predict somewhat distinct--though theoretically anticipated--aspects of functioning in adult relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Emotional Integration of Childhood Experience: Physiological, Facial Expressive, and Self-Reported Emotional Response During the Adult Attachment Interview.

Attachment researchers claim that individual differences in how adults talk about their early memories reflect qualitatively distinct organizations of emotion regarding childhood experiences with caregivers. Testing this assumption, the present study examined the relationship between attachment dimensions and physiological, facial expressive, as well as self-reported emotional responses during the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). Consistent with theoretical predictions, more prototypically secure adults behaviorally expressed and reported experiencing emotion consistent with the valence of the childhood events they described. Insecure adults also showed distinctive and theoretically anticipated forms of emotional response: Dismissing participants evidenced increased electrodermal activity during the interview, a sign of emotional suppression, whereas preoccupied adults showed reliable discrepancies between the valence of their inferred childhood experiences and their facial expressive as well as reported emotion during the AAI. Results substantiate a case that the AAI reflects individual differences in emotion regulation that conceptually parallel observations of attachment relationships in infancy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mothers' representations of their relationships with their toddlers: Links to adult attachment and observed mothering.

Mothers (N?=?125) and their firstborn sons were studied over an 11-month period to examine relations between mothers' representations of their relationships with their children (measured at 15 months by using the Parent Development Interview [PDI]), adult representations of attachment (measured at 12 months by using the Adult Attachment Interview [AAI]), and observed mothering (measured at 15 and 21 months). Results indicate (a) that mothers classified as autonomous on the AAI scored highest on the joy-pleasure/coherence dimension of the PDI and mothers classified as dismissing on the AAI scored highest on the anger dimension of the PDI and (b) that mothers scoring higher on the joy-pleasure/coherence dimension of the PDI engaged in less negative and more positive mothering. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Clinical applications of the Adult Attachment Interview.

Reviews the book, Clinical applications of the Adult Attachment Interview edited by Howard Steele and Miriam Steele (see record 2008-04549-000). Although the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), created by Mary Main and her colleagues, is among the most important research instruments in developmental and clinical psychology, the details of its administration and scoring are known only to certified coders and examples of its clinical utility are, for the everyday clinician, difficult to find. This edited volume draws the curtain far enough to reveal the major inner-workings of the interview and throws light on the penetrating ways it can inform any psychotherapy. The editors, Howard and Miriam Steele, themselves clinically minded attachment researchers and well versed in the AAI and its sister interviews, have done a remarkable job of recruiting clinicians and clinician-researchers who more than make good on the promise of the volume’s title. This volume is best suited to those already acquainted with attachment theory and the major findings of attachment research. It will help clinical graduate students tune their ears to attachment-informed ways of listening and thinking, help established clinicians attend to the nuances of linguistic structure to inform clinical understanding and intervention, and inspire researchers new to interview-based methods of investigation. Readers will not find, and the editors did not intend to include, debates on the merits of the interview’s complexity or a discussion of the much needed rapprochement between researchers who favor the AAI and researchers who rely on paper-and-pencil inventories of attachment security. The Steeles fill an critical gap in the clinical literature on attachment; outside of single chapters that give high quality but necessarily brief overviews of the AAI (e.g., Hesse, 2008; Levy & Kelly, 2009), I am not aware of another book that offers as unobstructed a view of how the AAI is conducted and coded or of the many ways the interview can be used as a clinical tool. Outside the expensive, labor-intensive AAI trainings given around the world, this volume may be as close as many of us will get to the means to appreciate, learn, and use the AAI in practice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

A dimensional approach to maternal attachment state of mind: Relations to maternal sensitivity and maternal autonomy support.

The aim of this study was to examine the developmental significance of the newly developed dimensional approach to attachment state of mind by investigating its capacity to predict individual differences in the quality of two caregiving behaviors—maternal sensitivity and maternal autonomy support—that are linked to numerous important child outcomes. Seventy-one upper-middle-class, predominantly French-speaking and Caucasian dyads participated in 3 home visits (34 girls). The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) was administered when the infants were 8 months old, maternal sensitivity was assessed when they were 12 months old, and maternal autonomy support was assessed at 15 months. The results revealed that, above and beyond SES, maternal sensitivity was negatively related to the dismissing dimension of the AAI, whereas maternal autonomy support was negatively linked to the preoccupied/unresolved dimension. In contrast, the traditional AAI categories were not significantly linked to parenting. These results speak to the relevance of using a continuous approach to attachment state of mind when predicting individual differences in specific caregiving behaviors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Another Look Inside the Gap: Ecological Contributions to the Transmission of Attachment in a Sample of Adolescent Mother-Infant Dyads.

Ecological contributions to attachment transmission were studied in a sample of 64 adolescent mother-infant dyads. Maternal sensitivity was assessed when infants were 6 and 10 months old, and infant security was assessed at 15 and 18 months. Maternal attachment state of mind was measured with the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) after the 1st assessment. Ecological variables considered were maternal education and depression, paternal support, and infant maternal grandmother support. Results indicated that when the contribution of ecological variables was statistically controlled for, sensitivity was a significant mediator and state of mind no longer contributed to infant security. Sensitivity also mediated an association between maternal education and infant attachment, suggesting that attachment transmission is embedded in a more global process of infant attachment development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A psychometric study of the Adult Attachment Interview: Reliability and discriminant validity.

The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) stimulates Ss to retrieve and evaluate attachment-related autobiographical memories and has increasingly been used to predict the quality of parent–child interactions and infant–parent attachment relationships. Its reliability and discriminate validity, however, have not yet been examined. In this study, 83 mothers were interviewed twice, 2 mo apart, by different interviewers so that the instrument's test–retest reliability and potential interviewer effects can be evaluated. To examine the AAI's discriminate validity, tests were administered for autobiographical memory, intelligence, and social desirability. The reliability of the AAI classifications was quite high over time (78% on the level of the 3 main categories κ?=?.63) and across interviewers. The unresolved category was less stable. The AAI classifications turned out to be independent on non-attachement-related memory, verbal and performance intelligence, and social desirability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adult attachment representations, parental responsiveness, and infant attachment: A meta-analysis on the predictive validity of the Adult Attachment Interview.

About a decade ago, the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI; C. George, N. Kaplan, & M. Main, 1985) was developed to explore parents' mental representations of attachment as manifested in language during discourse of childhood experiences. The AAI was intended to predict the quality of the infant-parent attachment relationship, as observed in the Ainsworth Strange Situation, and to predict parents' responsiveness to their infants' attachment signals. The current meta-analysis examined the available evidence with respect to these predictive validity issues. In regard to the 1st issue, the 18 available samples (N?=?854) showed a combined effect size of 1.06 in the expected direction for the secure vs. insecure split. For a portion of the studies, the percentage of correspondence between parents' mental representation of attachment and infants' attachment security could be computed (the resulting percentage was 75%; κ?=?.49, n?=?661). Concerning the 2nd issue, the 10 samples (N?=?389) that were retrieved showed a combined effect size of .72 in the expected direction. According to conventional criteria, the effect sizes are large.… (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)