How Our Caregivers Shape Who We Are: The Seven Dimensions of Attachment at the Core of Personality

Abstract

Psychology defines personality as the stable traits of an individual, and cognitive research suggests that a set of core beliefs is at the root of these traits. From this perspective, two major questions remain unanswered: (1) What are the core beliefs that make up personality? (2) How are they acquired? An interesting answer is provided by attachment theory, according to which attachment is at the basis of personality. The current theoretical formulation, however, does not sufficiently clarify the relationship between the two. Adopting a cognitive-clinical approach, we put forward a novel version of attachment theory, arguing that it can better account for the relationship between attachment and personality, thereby providing more convincing answers to questions (1) and (2). In particular, we propose that: (A) attachment information is acquired over seven dimensions; (B) the acquisition of each dimension is induced by a specific caregiving feature and (C) realized through a specific acquisition mechanism – imprinting. In a nutshell, we propose an Attachment-Personality Model (APM) according to which seven attachment dimensions constitute the knowledge core of personality. We finally discuss the significant implications of the model, especially its clinical application in terms of conception, assessment, and treatment of mental disorders. The model can be empirically tested, and we suggest three ways to do that.

Human attachment as a multi-dimensional control system: A computational implementation

“…Our model implements this hypothesis, focusing on the two dimensions of avoidance and ambivalence. In particular, consistently with the above descriptions, it considers avoidance as induced by the caregiver's insensitivity (an emotional feature) and ambivalence as induced by the caregiver's unresponsiveness (a physical feature; Gagliardi, 2021Gagliardi, , 2022:…”

“…Starting from theoretical considerations, we implemented the Dimensional Attachment Model (DAM), an ABM that, following the most recent dimensional perspective (DP; ( Fraley and Spieker, 2003 ; Gagliardi, 2021 ), separately reproduces the avoidant and ambivalent patterns generated by a child-caregiver dyad. Compared to the models that implement a categorical-behavioral perspective, the DAM differs by: (1) Considering independent attachment dimensions (avoidance and ambivalence) related to specific caregiving features (insensitivity and unresponsiveness, respectively); (2) Making the system work as a controller whose set-goals are the stored levels of such dimensions.…”

“…Interesting cases to model would be dysfunctional child-mother interactions with, for example, inversion of attachment (where child and mother invert their motivational systems) or dominant/submissive behaviors (where the child uses the ranking motivational system; Hennighausen and Lyons Ruth, 2005;Crittenden, 2008;Lyons-Ruth and Jacobvitz, 2008;Liotti, 2011). ( 6) Finally, it is important to note that there is reason to hypothesize attachment dimensionality to be higher than three (Gagliardi, 2021), and multiple dimensions could theoretically be active simultaneously (or, more probably, in a rapid sequence). Therefore, the DAM should be extended to implement these cases 10 .…”

“…Although the categorical view of attachment is still in use, further research has shown that attachment can be better characterized as a multidimensional phenomenon. In particular, the four identified categories can be described by three (relatively) independent dimensions that correspond to representations acquired on specific aspects of the relationship ( Fraley and Spieker, 2003 ; Liotti, 2011 ; Fraley et al, 2015 ; Paetzold et al, 2015 ; Mikulincer and Shaver, 2016 ; Gagliardi, 2021 ). Following the SSP, we refer to these dimensions as avoidance, ambivalence , 1 and disorganization .…”

“…Although the way in which attachment dimensions derive from the features of caregiving (intergenerational transmission) is still controversial in attachment theory ( Verhage et al, 2016 ; van Ijzendoorn and Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2019 ), the dimensionality of attachment suggests a possible corresponding dimensionality of caregiving ( Harrist and Waugh, 2002 ; Skinner et al, 2005 ; Bernier et al, 2014 ; Feldman, 2017 ; Hollenstein et al, 2017 ; Gagliardi, 2021 ). In other words, if several attachment dimensions can be identified as characterizing the child (or any “attacher”), some corresponding caregiving features should be identified as characterizing the mother (or any caregiver).…”