Suchergebnisse

Mary Ainsworth's legacy continues to shape the social and developmental sciences well after her death. The Ainsworth Strange Situation Procedure has, for decades, not only provided the underpinning methodology of attachment research, but also the frame of reference for theory. This has produced conditions where, as in psychoanalysis, debates about the future of the paradigm also entail a struggle to claim and negotiate the legacy of a founding figure. To date, historians have only looked at attachment research up to the 1980s. Interviews with 15 leading contemporary attachment researchers revealed Ainsworth's importance to later research, but also laid bare the challenges of claiming her inheritance in responding to the current challenges facing this area of research.

Assessments are regularly used among clinicians within psychology, yet many are deemed too time-consuming and expensive. The Personality Inventory for— Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.; DSM-5)—Brief Form (PID-5-BF) was developed to measure maladaptive personality traits ( negative affect, detachment, antagonism, disinhibition, and psychoticism), based on the "hybrid model" for personality disorders included in DSM- 5 Section III. Literature indicates that reliability and validity for the PID-5-BF has been established in other countries. We explored these psychometric properties within a South African population using the NEO Personality Inventory Revised and Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview's (MINI) Subscale K: psychotic disorders and mood disorder with psychotic features, as measures for comparison. Our results indicated support for the PID-5-BF with sufficient reliability, convergent, and discriminant validity. More research is needed on the PID-5-BF, especially in South Africa, but our findings indicate it to be a promising assessment tool that could greatly benefit clinicians in the mental health sector.

Indiscriminate friendliness (IF) is atypical behavior often seen in postinstitutionalized and foster children. The current exploratory study examined the associations of children's attachment security, parental sensitivity, and child inhibitory control with reported and observed IF in 60 family-reared, never-institutionalized foster children. IF was measured with a parent-report questionnaire (Indiscriminate Friendliness Questionnaire) and an observational measure (adapted version of the Stranger at the Door procedure; Bucharest Early Intervention Project). Attachment security and inhibitory control were related to reported IF (i.e., a secure attachment and poor inhibitory control were associated with higher levels of IF), but parental sensitivity was not. No associations were found between observed IF and attachment security, parental sensitivity, or inhibitory control. Thus, foster children with a secure attachment relationship may be more prone to socially interact with others including strangers, whereas better inhibitory control may serve as a buffer against IF but these results were found for reported IF only. More research is needed to gain more knowledge about different measures, other possible correlates, and underlying mechanisms of IF.