The Adult Attachment Interview is a semi-structured interview developed to investigate adults' attachment representations. Subjects are asked to describe their parents as caregivers, explain these descriptions, describe how their parents typically responded to distress, and discuss their current relationships with their parents. They are also asked to describe any significant losses and/or instances of abuse during childhood. Scoring focuses on the accessibility of early experiences to memory and the coherence and plausibility of the subject's narrative. Discriminant validity is always an important issue with such measures because IQ and other cognitively loaded variables offer plausible alternative interpretations or represent important correlates that should be treated as covariates when the measure is used. In addition, complex, multifaceted interviews always pose the risk of assessing general social adjustment rather than a more narrowly defined construct. This study examines the discriminant validity of the AAI vis(-)à-vis intelligence, social desirability, discourse style, and general social adjustment in a sample of 53 native-English-speaking, married women with preschool children. They were assessed with the AAI, a written IQ test, the Social Adjustment Scale, the Employment Experience Interview (discourse style), and a measure of social desirability. There were modest but significant correlations with IQ scores and social adjustment. There was no relation between AAI classifications and discourse style or social desirability. These results substantially strengthen the case for interpreting the AAI as an attachment-related measure.

The Adult Attachment Interview is a semi-structured interview developed to investigate adults' attachment representations. Subjects are asked to describe their parents as caregivers, explain these descriptions, describe how their parents typically responded to distress, and discuss their current relationships with their parents. They are also asked to describe any significant losses and/or instances of abuse during childhood. Scoring focuses on the accessibility of early experiences to memory and the coherence and plausibility of the subject's narrative. Discriminant validity is always an important issue with such measures because IQ and other cognitively loaded variables offer plausible alternative interpretations or represent important correlates that should be treated as covariates when the measure is used. In addition, complex, multifaceted interviews always pose the risk of assessing general social adjustment rather than a more narrowly defined construct. This study examines the discriminant validity of the AAI vis(-)à-vis intelligence, social desirability, discourse style, and general social adjustment in a sample of 53 native-English-speaking, married women with preschool children. They were assessed with the AAI, a written IQ test, the Social Adjustment Scale, the Employment Experience Interview (discourse style), and a measure of social desirability. There were modest but significant correlations with IQ scores and social adjustment. There was no relation between AAI classifications and discourse style or social desirability. These results substantially strengthen the case for interpreting the AAI as an attachment-related measure.

Studies of infant-father attachment and other aspects of father-child relationships burgeoned during the 1980s and 90s, in step with new expectations for greater father participation in childrearing, but less is known about how involved fathers experience themselves as attachment figures, socialization agents, and playmates/companions of their young children. In an attempt to investigate these topics from a relationship perspective, we administered the Parent Attachment Interview (PAI) to 49 married fathers from dual career families who, based on current literature, were expected to be active participants in caring for and interacting with their preschool children. The 22 open-ended PAI questions were designed to probe fathers' thoughts and feelings about parent-child attachment, but also elicited extensive descriptions of other aspects of fathering, including socialization and companionship. In addition, fathers reflected on similarities and differences between the father- and mother-child relationships, and these accounts were compared with corresponding discussions by their wives. Among new issues raised by the study were the role of affection in attachment relationships, evidence for the attachment hierarchy construct, issues of parental self-control in relation to discipline, conceptual overlaps between attachment and other aspects of parenting, and the diverse meanings of father-mother differences and disagreements in the three domains of parenting addressed in this study.

No abstract

Living with chronic cancer poses unique challenges for parents caring for minor children. The demands of the illness such as pain, fatigue, and loss of mobility, as well as caregiver responsibilities, can conflict with the patient's and partner's idea of what it means to parent. This article examines the ways in which chronic cancer impacts the parental role using Attachment as a theoretical framework. Case examples and implications for clinical practice in both health care and mental health settings are provided.

Three related hypotheses derived from attachment theory were examined in this multi-informant and multi-method study of 71 postdivorce mothers and their preschool children (40 boys, 31 girls): (1) mother-child interactions observed at home will be related to attachment-related representations by children (Attachment Story Completion Task or ASCT) and mothers (Parent Attachment Interview or PAI); and (2) these variables will be inversely correlated with maternal depressive symptoms and positively with social support (from mother's parents and the child's father); and (3) mother-child observations and representations will predict teacher-rated peer behavior. Where appropriate, child gender, maternal income, and child receptive language were statistically controlled. More harmonious observed mother-child interactions were associated with children's sense of self-worth in family relationships (ASCT) and maternal accounts of sensitive-effective guidance (PAI). Observational and representational variables were inversely correlated with maternal depressive symptoms. Mothers' satisfaction with social support from their parents was indirectly linked to the family variables while social support from the child's father had no measurable effect on the mother-child variables. Mother-child variables and teacher ratings were uncorrelated but explained independent variance in ASCT self-worth scores.