Читать книгу The Handy Psychology Answer Book - Lisa J. Cohen - Страница 168

In order to study attachment in adults, Mary Main and colleagues developed a semi-structured interview called the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). A semi-structured interview provides specific questions as well as open-ended, follow-up questions. There is a script to follow but the interviewer can deviate from it to clarify information. The interview takes about an hour and a half and asks questions about the subject’s childhood relationship with his or her parents. The way the subject talks about childhood attachment is more important than what they say about their parents. Of most importance is the coherence of their narrative, specifically between their abstract generalizations about their childhood attachment relationships (e.g., “My mother was loving, involved.”) and the specific memories generated to illustrate these generalizations (e.g., “I remember making chocolate chip cookies with her in our kitchen.”). The narrative is coherent if the story makes sense; if it is riddled with contradictions, it is not coherent.

Is your attachment status fixed by the time you’re one year old?

Attachment research is sometimes interpreted as implying that personality is entirely formed by the time that a child is one year old. Attachment strategies are conservative, meaning that they are resistant to change, but they are not fixed. If the family environment remains stable and the parent-child interaction patterns do not change dramatically, it is likely that the child’s general approach to attachment will remain stable. On the other hand, if the family environment changes dramatically or if the parent chooses to change his or her way of relating to the child, the child’s attachment status can change.