A taxometric study of the adult attachment interview
Roisman, G.I. and Fraley, R.C. and Belsky, Jay (2007) A taxometric study of the adult attachment interview. Developmental Psychology 43 (3), 675 - 686. ISSN 0012-1649.
Abstract
This study is the first to examine the latent structure of individual differences reflected in the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI; C. George, N. Kaplan, & M. Main, 1985), a commonly used and well-validated measure designed to assess an adult's current state of mind regarding childhood experiences with caregivers. P. E. Meehl's (1995) taxometric methods (i.e., MAXCOV-HITMAX) were applied to data from 504 AAIs. Analyses revealed that the variation underlying secure versus dismissing states of mind was more consistent with a dimensional than a taxonic model. (Taxometric analyses of preoccupation were indeterminate.) In addition, variation in secure adults' (n = 278) reports about their early experiences revealed little evidence for qualitative groups of earned- and continuous-secures. Rather, the inferred life experiences of secure adults appeared to be distributed continuously. Findings are discussed in terms of their theoretical implications regarding the phenomenon of earned-security specifically and variation underlying secure and insecure states of mind more generally. The consequences of these analyses for AAI reliability training and coding are also explored.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Keyword(s) / Subject(s): | Adult Attachment Interview, taxometrics, MAXCOV-HITMAX, principal components analysis |
| School: | Birkbeck Schools and Departments > School of Science > Psychological Sciences |
| Depositing User: | Administrator |
| Date Deposited: | 09 Aug 2011 14:07 |
| Last Modified: | 17 Apr 2013 12:21 |
| URI: | http://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/3947 |
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