Attachment style measurement: a clinical and epidemiological perspective

Shaver and Mikulincer's article is to be applauded for its integrative approach to investigating attachment-related phenomena. The authors attempt to break the polarisation and the 'in-out group' mentality associated with the two strands of research into attachment style, broadly grouped into narrative style interviews aimed at tapping states of mind (particularly unconscious processes), and the social psychological approaches using self-reports to assess individual differences in adult perceptions of relationships (particularly romantic ones). Effectively these follow the different disciplinary missions of developmentalists and personality theorists, although each has also been directed towards clinical ends. Shaver & Mikulincer comment that researchers from either tradition have tended to ignore each other's work and rarely combine the approaches in the same studies. Typically the problem is greater for investigators based in the self-report tradition to utilise interview measures than vice-versa, provoking the statement reported elsewhere that 'researchers in the personality/social subculture have not taken the time to master the interview techniques' (Bartholomew & Shaver, 1998). The aim of Shaver and Mikulincer's review is first to highlight the wide potential usage of self-report scales in testing causal attachment hypotheses and second to advocate a multi-measure approach to attachment research in order to encapsulate the several different levels at which attachment works. Ultimately they strive to encompass a personality theory which incorporates attachment concepts as central.