APA Dictionary of Psychology

an hour-long patterned interview used for assessing a person’s perceptions of and attitudes toward emotionally close relationships. It consists of 18 questions that ask participants to reflect on their childhood experiences with caregivers while maintaining coherent and collaborative discourse with the interviewer. The participants’ responses are classified according to five categories of adult attachment: (a) dismissing, in which interviewees idealize their early relationships but cannot provide specific supporting examples (corresponding to the anxious–avoidant attachment of infancy); (b) preoccupied, in which interviewees describe their early parental experiences as overly involving and angry (corresponding to the anxious–resistant attachment of infancy); (c) secure-autonomous, in which interviewees provide objective, coherent accounts of their relationships (corresponding to the secure attachment of infancy); (d) unresolved-disorganized, in which interviewees show lapses in reasoning when discussing loss or abuse (corresponding to the disorganized attachment of infancy); and (e) cannot classify, in which interviewees use contradictory language and show characteristics of multiple categories (currently unassociated with a pattern in infancy). See also attachment style. [originally developed in 1984 by U.S. developmental psychologists Carol George, Nancy R. Kaplan (1956–  ), and Mary Main]