Abstract
Attachment theorists claim that the quality of parental support is internalized as a mental representation of early relationship experiences. Increasingly, the content of attachment representations is evaluated by studying the extent to which adults demonstrate knowledge of the secure base script, either in the context of the attachment script assessment (ASA) or during the Adult Attachment Interview (AAIsbs). Preliminary evidence from a high-risk sample showed that AAIsbs was more strongly associated with the quality of antecedent caregiving than was the more traditional approach to the measurement of adult attachment focused on the coherence of adults' AAI discourse. Drawing on new coding of data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD), we found that AAIsbs around age 18 years was significantly predicted by observations of maternal (r = 0.21) and paternal (r = 0.12) sensitivity assessed prospectively through age 15 years, and with attachment security in the first 3 years of life (r = 0.08). AAIsbs was also associated with existing measures of adult attachment (rs = 0.31–0.42). Pre-registered analyses revealed that AAIsbs performed in a manner roughly comparable to traditional, though more labour-intensive approaches to coding the AAI. Based on all available evidence from the SECCYD and the pragmatic challenges and advantages of different narrative methods for assessing adult attachment representations, researchers seeking to measure attachment representations should strongly consider the strengths of the ASA in term of practicality, performance, and adaptability to various age groups across development. Highlights: The present report examines the extent to which secure base script knowledge, as assessed by the Adult Attachment Interview (AAIsbs) has its origins in early caregiving experiences, and to report how AAIsbs performs in comparison to existing measures of adult attachment, in a large scale, normative-risks sample of adolescents. Data were drawn from the newly re-coded AAIs from the NICHD Study of Early Childcare and Youth Development. Overall, the AAIsbs system performs as well as traditional AAI measures, but researchers looking to examine adult attachment representations should consider using the Attachment Script Assessment both for its empirical and pragmatic advantages.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Journal | Infant and Child Development |
| DOIs | |
| State | Accepted/In press - 2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Coding of secure base script knowledge for this study was supported by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD; R01 HD102035; R01 HD069442) to Glenn I. Roisman. A cooperative agreement (U10 HD027040) supported data collection for the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD) from birth through age 15‐years and the age 18‐year data collection was supported by a R01 from the NICHD (R01 HD054822) to Cathryn Booth‐LaForce. Research reported in this publication was also facilitated by the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health via a training grant (T32 MH015755) supporting pre‐doctoral research by Marissa D. Nivison at the University of Minnesota. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Institutes of Health. Finally, we thank the study participants for their willingness to be a part of this longitudinal study that began shortly after their birth. Eunice Kennedy Shriver
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors. Infant and Child Development published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Keywords
- adult attachment interview
- attachment
- maternal sensitivity
- secure base script knowledge