This study provides data supporting the reliability and validity of an Italian version of the adult attachment script representation task, designed by Waters & Rodrigues-Doolabh (2004). Specifically, we tested hypotheses concerning positive relations between attachment scriptedness scores and two other representational measures, derived from the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). In addition, we tested the hypothesis that secure base script scores should predict maternal sensitivity in the context of mother - infant interaction. Thirty-one mothers completed narrative protocols and received scriptedness scores using the Waters & Rodrigues-Doolabh (2004) criteria. Prior to the attachment script assessment, mothers had been assessed using the AAI and had been observed in the context of infant - mother interactions to assess maternal sensitivity. Assessment of instrument reliability was satisfactory (Cronbach's alpha >.70) and both hypotheses were supported; the attachment scriptedness score (based on 4 attachment narratives) was positively and significantly associated with the AAI coherence score, the continuous security score derived from the AAI State of Mind scales, and with maternal sensitivity. These data extend to another socio-cultural milieu, previous findings supporting reliability, convergent, and predictive validity of the attachment script representation task as a measure of adult attachment.

Based on the idea that believers' perceived relationships with God develop from their attachment-related experiences with primary caregivers, the authors explored the quality of such experiences and their representations among individuals who differed in likelihood of experiencing a principal attachment to God. Using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), they compared attachment-related experiences and representations in a group of 30 Catholic priests and religious with a matched group of lay Catholics and with the worldwide normal distribution of AAI classifications. They found an overrepresentation of secure-autonomous states regarding attachment among those more likely to experience a principal attachment to God (i.e., the priests and religious) compared with the other groups and an underrepresentation of unresolved-disorganized states in the two groups of Catholics compared with the worldwide normal distribution. Key findings also included links between secure-autonomous states regarding attachment and estimated experiences with loving or nonrejecting parents on the one hand and loving God imagery on the other. These results extend the literature on religion from an attachment perspective and support the idea that generalized working models derived from attachment experiences with parents are reflected in believers' perceptions of God.

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These preliminary findings highlight the negative impact that the congenital malformation of clubfoot can have on mothers' psychological well-being and the protective role of social support. Moreover, the positive feedback from the mothers receiving emotional and informational support confirms the importance of implementing intervention protocols in the hospital unit directed to parents of babies with a congenital malformation.

One of the most striking pieces of evidence in attachment research is that attachment security is transmitted from 1 generation to the next. Although there has been an enormous advance in the understanding of this process, this area of research suffers from some significant gaps, as for example the transmission across 3 generations when considering the 2 parents as well as the 2 couples of grandparents. The current study was designed to fill this gap in existing literature by investigating AAI attachment representations in the members of 3 generations, belonging to a total of 32 families, each including an adult offspring, both parents and the 4 grandparents (N = 224). Main findings show that the transmission across 2 generations was stronger in the presence of a female caregiver (either mother or maternal/paternal grandmother), and that across 3 generations was confirmed only in the presence of 2 female caregivers (grandmother to mother to offspring). Conversely, the transmissions across 3 generations with only 1 or no female caregiver were not confirmed. Last, experiencing 2 secure parents increased the likelihood of developing a secure state of mind with respect to attachment among offspring, mothers and fathers, 95% confidence intervals [3.52, 1,238.72], [1.67, 31.17], and [1.67, 19.98], respectively. These findings may have important theoretical implications related to the understanding of the factors involved in the continuity and discontinuity of attachment patterns across generations. (PsycINFO Database Record