Examining developmental fit of the Adult Attachment Interview in adolescence

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Developmental Review j o u r n a l h o m e p a g e : w w w. e l s e v i e r. c o m / l o c a t e / d r

Examining developmental fit of the Adult Attachment Interview in adolescence Kelly A. Warmuth *, E. Mark Cummings Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA

A R T I C L E

I N F O

Article history: Received 27 July 2014 Revised 15 April 2015 Available online Keywords: Attachment Measurement AAI Adolescence Developmental fit

A B S T R A C T

When measuring attachment security, considering the developmental period of interest is imperative when deciding which measure of attachment to use. In the current review, we note a lack of fit between the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) – which is widely regarded as the gold standard for assessing attachment in adolescence – and the stage-salient experiences of adolescence. First, we explore how some of these normative experiences complicate assessment of attachment in adolescence. Second, we review the tenets of the AAI and detail its use with teenagers. Third, we investigate attachment in the context of multiple key developmental tasks of adolescence, including maintaining open communication, selfconcept and identity formation, deidealization of parents, autonomy development, the shift of attachment behavior toward peers, and advances in executive functioning through development of the prefrontal cortex. After noting incongruences between those tasks and the AAI, additional weaknesses to using the AAI in adolescence are considered, including: (1) the “generalized state of mind,” (2) reliance on retrospectively reporting childhood experiences with parents, and (3) the apparent abundance of dismissing individuals. Considering the presented evidence, we resolve that the AAI – although a well-established measure of adult attachment – is not a good fit to the developmental stage of adolescence and thus, the development of other assessments of parent–adolescent attachment is needed. We conclude by making suggestions for future assessments of parent–child attachment in adolescence. © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

* Corresponding author. Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA. Fax: (574) 6311825. E-mail address: [email protected] (K.A. Warmuth). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2015.04.002 0273-2297/© 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Introduction Attachment theory, as defined originally by Bowlby (1958, 1969, 1973, 1980, 1982, 1988), stipulates that for social and emotional development to occur normally, children and infants need to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver. Since its inception, implications of attachment theory have been extended through adulthood and parent–child attachment has continued to be a strong predictor of a myriad of outcomes (for reviews, see DeKlyen & Greenberg, 2008; Dozier, Stovall-McClough, & Albus, 2008). Extending beyond the parent–child dyad, early attachment relationships with parents have also been shown to predict relationships with peers (Allen, Moore, Kuperminc, & Bell, 1998; Cohn, 1990; Coleman, 2003; Schneider, Atkinson, & Tardif, 2001; Sroufe, 2005; Youngblade & Belsky, 1989), as well as later romantic partners (Collins & Read, 1990; Crowell & Owens, 1998; Doyle, Lawford, & Markiewicz, 2009; Hazan, Campa, & Gur-Yaish, 2006; Hazan & Shaver, 1987, 1994; Kobak & Hazan, 1991). One notable reason for attachment theory’s empirical success as a conceptual model for influences on youth development thus far – in addition to its applicability to a wide array of research questions – has been the methodologically rigorous assessments used to measure attachment security in each developmental period. As children develop cognitive sophistication, improve motor capacities, and increase their engagement with the world of peers, the nature of the parent–child attachment relationship also develops. These changes, however, pose a challenge to researchers, as measuring parent–child attachment longitudinally with a singular method poses significant conceptual and assessment problems and challenges (Cicchetti, Cummings, Greenberg, & Marvin, 1990). Considering that attachment is a lifelong construct, the creation of multiple assessments – each targeted to the desired developmental period – is imperative to research in this area (Koski & Shaver, 1997; Posada, 2006). For such reasons, researchers created the Strange Situation for infancy (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978); the Separation– Reunion Procedure (SRP; Cassidy, 1988; Main & Cassidy, 1988; Marvin & Van Devender, 1978), Attachment Q-Set (AQS; Waters & Deane, 1985), MacArthur Story Stem Battery (MSSB; Bretherton, Oppenheim, Buchsbaum, Emde, & The MacArthur Narrative Group, 1990), and Separation Anxiety Test (SAT; Klagsbrun & Bowlby, 1976) for childhood; and the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI; George, Kaplan, & Main, 1985, 1996) for adulthood. The AAI was later extended downward to adolescence and has come to be widely regarded as the “gold standard” for assessing attachment in adolescence (Hesse, 1999, 2008). However, as children transition from one developmental stage to another, new developmental competencies (e.g., autonomy, executive function, and identity formation) impact the operation of the attachment system and thus, incorporating these unfolding capabilities into parent–child attachment assessments is imperative to assessment validity (Cicchetti et al., 1990). Upon closer examination of the stage-salient issues of adolescence, disconnects are apparent between assessment based on the AAI and the characteristics of the developmental period of adolescence. Therefore, in the current review, we explore the characteristics and challenges of adolescence and question the developmental fit of the AAI for this age period. In addition, we present future directions and methodological considerations for ensuring reliable and valid assessment of parent–adolescent attachment. Adolescence Adolescence is a period of profound transformation, as the nature of attachment becomes more reciprocal with the adolescent no longer being just a recipient of care from parents, but also a provider (Allen, 2008; Allen & Land, 1999). Considering the dramatic changes that occur in the adolescent and in the parent–adolescent attachment relationship, examining attachment in the context of the developmental changes of adolescence is essential to make sense of seemingly conflicted or contradictory behavior toward attachment figures (Allen & Land, 1999). For example, although adolescents may appear to view their attachment bonds to parents as ties that restrain rather than secure bases (Allen, Hauser, Bell, & O’Connor, 1994; Allen & Land, 1999; Hill & Holmbeck, 1986), maintaining the parent as a secure base and continuing the goal-corrected partnership are likely to help the adolescent explore his or her autonomy (Allen & Land, 1999; Allen et al., 2003; Bowlby, 1969, 1982; Hazan & Zeifman, 1999). Therefore, seeming attempts to create distance in the parent–adolescent relationship may actually be adolescents’ normative strides toward the development of autonomy. Please cite this article in press as: Kelly A. Warmuth, E. Mark Cummings, Examining developmental fit of the adult attachment interview in adolescence, Developmental Review (2015), doi: 10.1016/j.dr.2015.04.002

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With adolescents’ developmental gains and burgeoning independence, attachment behavior is less easily activated and distressing conditions requiring parents’ assistance are rare (McElhaney, Allen, Stephenson, & Hare, 2009). As with romantic partners who had been together longer, overt displays of attachment behavior are likely to be less common in adolescents who have been with their parents for a significant amount of time by this age (Hazan, Gur-Yaish, & Campa, 2004). Though many of the research methods typical to infancy and early childhood are observational, as attachment behavior becomes increasingly more subtle and is better reflected through internal representations than behavior, it is unreasonable and potentially unethical to manufacture the observable situations necessary to provoke attachment responses in adolescents (McElhaney et al., 2009; Weinfield, 2005). Therefore, with the “move to the level of representation” (Main, Kaplan, & Cassidy, 1985) and considerable developmental gains, adolescence brings with it ample opportunities for the revision of internal working models and new ways of conceptualizing the parent–child attachment relationship (Allen & Land, 1999; Allen & Miga, 2010; Kobak & Cole, 1994; McElhaney et al., 2009; Shumaker, Deutsch, & Brenninkmeyer, 2009). One new conceptualization of attachment in adolescence is the “state of mind with regard to attachment” (Main et al., 1985), which is a single overarching attachment organization rather than a particular attachment relationship classification (Allen, 2008; Allen & Land, 1999; Allen et al., 2003; Becker-Stoll, Fremmer-Bombik, Wartner, Zimmermann, & Grossmann, 2008; Crowell & Treboux, 1995; Crowell, Fraley, & Shaver, 1999; Feeney, 1999; Hesse, 1999, 2008; Main & Goldwyn, 1984/1998; McElhaney et al., 2009; Rholes & Simpson, 2004). Adolescence and the Adult Attachment Interview Unlike in childhood which has several methodologically rigorous attachment assessments commonly in use, the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI; George et al., 1985, 1996) is the single most commonly used non-questionnaire measure in adolescence. Designed to “surprise the unconscious” and capture states of mind, this hour-long retrospective interview asks participants a series of 20 standardized questions regarding attachment-related childhood experiences and their perceived impact on the participant’s development and current functioning (for reviews, see Hesse, 1999, 2008). Considering that the original measure was designed for use in adults, adaptations of the AAI for adolescents maintain the integrity of the original interview, but utilize simplified language and clarified requests for information (Adam, Sheldon-Keller, & West, 1996; Ammaniti, van IJzendoorn, Speranza, & Tambelli, 2000; Hamilton, 2000; Miga, Hare, Allen, & Manning, 2010; Ward & Carlson, 1995). Once collected and videotaped, interviews are transcribed verbatim and coded using one of two systems: the Main and Goldwyn (1984/1998) system or the AAI Q-sort (Kobak, Cole, Ferenz-Gillies, Fleming, & Gamble, 1993). The Main–Goldwyn (1984/1998) system codes the quality of the discourse with an emphasis on content and coherence. Coders use continuous 9-point scales to evaluate the participant’s inferred early experiences with caregivers (i.e., maternal and paternal love, rejection, neglect, pressure to achieve, and role reversal) and current state of mind with respect to attachment (i.e., coherence of transcript, idealization, involving anger, derogation, insistence upon lack of recall, metacognitive monitoring, passivity of discourse, fear of loss, unresolved loss, unresolved abuse). Using these scores, coders classify respondents as either secure/autonomous (freely valuing of attachment, yet objective) – which is subdivided into earned-secure and continuous-secure categories – or one of the three insecure classifications: insecure/dismissing (devaluing of attachment relationships), insecure/preoccupied (preoccupied with or by early attachment relationships), and unresolved/disorganized (show trauma from unresolved loss or abuse). Secure/autonomous individuals value their attachment relationships and provide discourse that is coherent, internally consistent, and non-defensive in nature. The valence of discourse – namely, positive or negative – differentiates earned- versus continuous-secure, with earned-secure individuals describing negative past experiences coherently and continuous-secure individuals coherently detailing positive experiences. Those classified as insecure/dismissing are likely to provide narratives which idealize attachment figures, yet do not have positive specific memories of caregivers to support idealizations. Alternatively, these individuals may minimize the importance of attachment relationships or provide excessively terse responses. Individuals classified as insecure/preoccupied, on the other hand, are likely to maximize the importance of attachment relationships and may provide narratives which Please cite this article in press as: Kelly A. Warmuth, E. 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are incoherent, have an angry or passive discourse style, and are filled with excessive or irrelevant information. Finally, individuals classified as unresolved/disorganized are likely to have mixed feelings about close relationships and show trauma regarding past loss or abuse experiences. Although coders of the Main–Goldwyn (1984/1998) system must complete a rigorous training seminar and demonstrate reliability on category codes, there is currently no process for ensuring interrater reliability on the inferred early experiences and current state of mind codes outside of each individual laboratory (Haydon, Roisman, & Burt, 2012). That is, reliability is not assessed across labs, but is based on completion of a common training program, with checks made against a master list. However, the AAI Q-sort does allow for the computation of interrater reliability on continuous scores, as transcripts coded by more than one trained and reliable coder can be correlated (Haydon et al., 2012). The AAI Q-sort (Kobak et al., 1993) was designed to closely parallel the Main–Goldwyn (1984/1998) system with the goal of providing a continuum of quality of attachment organization. Trained sorters organize a set of 100 items – with most items deriving from the Main–Goldwyn (1984/1998) descriptions – into nine piles ranging from most characteristic to least characteristic. Similar to the Attachment Q-set (Waters & Deane, 1985) used in childhood, this method provides a forced bell distribution, which helps reduce artificially inflated interrater agreement and halo effects (Block, 1971), as well as allows raters to identify unreliable items (Kobak et al., 1993). Using the security/anxiety and deactivation/ hyperactivation dimensions collected, sorters are able to classify participants as “secure or free to evaluate attachment,” “dismissing,” or “preoccupied”; however, this system does not provide an “unresolved” classification (Kobak, 1999), which can be regarded as a limitation if one regards “unresolved” as a key classification. Though the AAI has been used extensively in developmental research as a measure of attachment security in adolescence, it is important to note that the assessment was not originally designed or validated for that purpose, but rather, to assess adults’ caregiving capacity (i.e., responsiveness to infants’ attachment-related signals) and ability to raise secure infants (Allen, 2015; Allen & Manning, 2007; Allen & Miga, 2010; Thompson & Raikes, 2003; van IJzendoorn, 1995). With remarkable accuracy, the AAI functions as a predictor of the parenting quality infants are likely to receive from the interviewee and subsequently, their infants’ attachment security in the Strange Situation (Allen, 2015). However, despite the obvious relation, caregiving capacity is not equivalent to being secure with one’s own attachment figures (Allen & Manning, 2007) and thus, the question remains whether the AAI has been misused in adolescence. Being that most adolescents are not ready to be parents (Lewin, Mitchell, & Ronzio, 2013) and are struggling with their own developmental transitions (Emery, Paquette, & Bigras, 2008), it would be remarkable for them to score highly on caregiving capacity. For many adolescent parents, responding to an infant’s needs while navigating their own stage-salient tasks may prove to be too burdensome, with some adolescent parents electing to address their own needs over those of their infant children (Emery et al., 2008). By putting their own needs first, it makes sense then why low SES adolescent mothers in a meta-analysis showed the greatest overrepresentation of dismissing attachments over any other group, including older mothers and other adolescents (van IJzendoorn & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2010). If assessing the capacity to raise secure infants, this overrepresentation of dismissing attachments on the AAI could sensibly reflect adolescents’ difficulty responding simultaneously to their own needs and the needs of their children. In a separate meta-analysis, infants of adolescent mothers were more likely to have disorganized attachments (van IJzendoorn, Schuengel, & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 1999). Therefore, these studies seem to imply an issue of construct validity; namely, that – even in adolescence – the AAI may truly be a measure of an individual’s caregiving capacity and ability to raise secure infants, rather than a measure of attachment to one’s own caregivers. Yet, in study after study (e.g., Beijersbergen, Juffer, Bakermans-Kranenburg, & van IJzendoorn, 2012; Hamilton, 2000; Lewis, Feiring, & Rosenthal, 2000; Waters, Merrick, Treboux, Crowell, & Albersheim, 2000; Weinfield, Sroufe, & Egeland, 2000; Weinfield, Whaley, & Egeland, 2004), the AAI is being used to classify adolescents’ own attachments to parents as opposed to their capacities to act as caregivers themselves or as a predictor of their infants’ Strange Situation classifications. Reiterating the concerns of Cicchetti et al. (1990), as new developmental systems come online, the attachment system changes and thus, assessments need to account for these stage-salient tasks to ensure construct validity. With increased understanding of adolescence, it is becoming clearer that Please cite this article in press as: Kelly A. Warmuth, E. Mark Cummings, Examining developmental fit of the adult attachment interview in adolescence, Developmental Review (2015), doi: 10.1016/j.dr.2015.04.002

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the AAI is fundamentally unsatisfying in this period. Therefore, in the coming sections, this review will explore some of the stage-salient tasks of adolescence – including maintaining open communication, self-concept and identity formation, deidealization of parents, autonomy development, the shift of attachment behavior toward peers, and development of the prefrontal cortex and executive function – and note the apparent disconnect between methodology and development. Attachment and adolescent development Maintaining open communication As in childhood, maintaining open communication with parents remains important in adolescence (Allen, Hauser, O’Connor, Bell, & Eickholt, 1996; Kobak, 1999; Kobak & Duemmler, 1994). With all the significant developmental changes occurring – such as attempts to gain autonomy, individuation, and increasing independence – parent–adolescent conflict is likely to increase in early adolescence; however, this does not necessarily indicate attachment insecurity (Steinberg, 1990). Research has shown that parents who are attuned to adolescents’ self-perceptions and who maintain sensitive support during conflicts allow adolescents to explore their growing independence in thought and speech from the safety of their secure base (Allen et al., 2003; Beijersbergen et al., 2012). Likewise, as adolescents may be particularly sensitive during this transitional period, parents’ attunement to these changes may allow them to adjust their sensitivity and avoid wandering into the adolescent’s “weak spots” during disagreements (Allen et al., 2003). However, without open communication, parents are less likely to understand these vulnerabilities and adolescents may be less willing to disclose this information (McElhaney et al., 2009). Thus, there may be difficulties maintaining the goal-corrected partnership and mutual set-goals formed in childhood (Allen & Land, 1999; Bowlby, 1973; Kobak & Duemmler, 1994). In spite of this, as adolescents get older, particularly by middle or late adolescence, parent– teen conflict is likely to decrease, which may be a result of adolescents’ increased perspective-taking abilities or parents gradually conceding on various issues of conflict to their teenagers (McElhaney et al., 2009; Silverberg, Tennenbaum, & Jacob, 1992). This notable developmental shift, however, is not accounted for by the AAI during this period. When conflict is elevated, assessing attachment security with the AAI in adolescence – especially, early adolescence – may be problematic, as current turmoil in the parent–adolescent relationship may decrease adolescent perspective taking (Frantz & Janoff-Bulman, 2000) and thus, make it harder for adolescents to answer questions about their parents’ intentions during the participants’ childhood. Therefore, the parent–adolescent interactions surrounding these developmental transitions may impact AAI classifications in adolescence. Besides adolescents undergoing their own developmental transitions, parents are likely to be experiencing their own transition period. It has been suggested that much of the conflict occurring between parents and adolescents could be explained by their coinciding developmental crises (Kidwell, Fischer, Dunham, & Baranowski, 1983). From a family systems perspective, this increase in family-wide stressand-strain could explain the increased parent–adolescent conflict and decreased communication characteristic of this time period, as both parents and teens are distracted by their own respective transitions. Thus, the reported discontinuities in attachment security during this time may be more indicative of normative struggles than significant changes in the attachment relationship (Steinberg, 1990). Or rather, it may be that “coinciding parent–teen transitions” should be added to the list of life events likely to disrupt attachment security (see Waters, Hamilton, & Weinfield, 2000). Considering such, the classifications provided may not reflect current states of mind with respect to attachment, but rather current states of mind with respect to the broader parent–adolescent relationship. Self-concept, identity formation, and deidealization In addition to exploring coinciding parent–child developmental transitions, since attachment moves to the level of representation in childhood (Main et al., 1985) it makes sense that psychological gains associated with adolescence – such as autonomy, deidealization of the parent, and identity development– are of primary concern when it comes to assessing attachment during this developmental period. One Please cite this article in press as: Kelly A. Warmuth, E. Mark Cummings, Examining developmental fit of the adult attachment interview in adolescence, Developmental Review (2015), doi: 10.1016/j.dr.2015.04.002

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major developmental task for adolescents is the construction of a coherent and well-organized selfconcept (Sagi-Schwartz & Aviezer, 2005), which is essentially one’s internal working model of the self. With parental support, adolescents are better able to construct and organize their schemas about themselves, which in turn can foster closer relationships to parents, as well as peers and romantic partners; however, the self-concept is considerably different in early versus late adolescence (Sagi-Schwartz & Aviezer, 2005). Being that the self-concept is in flux in adolescence, expecting teens to provide coherent AAI narratives to earn secure/autonomous classifications may be a developmentally inappropriate demand. If early adolescents are still organizing their internal working models about themselves, their states of mind may also be fluctuating as they attempt to make sense of their attachment-related experiences with parents (Kobak & Zajac, 2011). In the same vein, if narrative coherence is utilized as a measure of the security of underlying representations (Crowell & Waters, 2005), adolescents with evolving self-concepts may appear more insecure than in reality. As the self-concept is developing, adolescents also engage in the critical stage-salient task of identity formation. To differentiate from parents during the search for a distinct identity, the adolescent may purposefully adopt ideologies different from those of parents, which is likely to lead to stress in the home environment as parents try to maintain continuity of family structure (Kidwell et al., 1983). Whether parents foster or inhibit these exploratory behaviors, however, can notably influence adolescent and early adult identity formation (Koski & Shaver, 1997). As suggested by Marcia (1966), for a mature and differentiated ego identity to develop, adolescents must question and challenge the existing family structure in which they have been raised (Kidwell et al., 1983). Moreover, as adolescents search for identity, it also becomes necessary for them to deidealize parents (Josselson, 1988; Silverberg & Gondoli, 1996). As increased perspective-taking abilities permit adolescents to reflect on parents in a logical and critical manner, it also becomes important to abandon the idealized images of parents from childhood for adolescents to individuate (Allen et al., 2003; Inhelder & Piaget, 1958; Josselson, 1988; McElhaney et al., 2009). Though the concept of deidealization is included in the Main– Goldwyn (1984/1998) system, the AAI’s conceptualization of “deidealizing” or “minimizing the importance of the attachment relationship” appears to complicate assessment of attachment when considered in the context of identity formation. When separating from parents and trying to create their own identities, adolescents naturally deactivate their attachment systems (Dewitte, Koster, De Houwer, & Buysse, 2007) and minimize the importance of the attachment relationship by consciously choosing to not seek comfort from parents in times of distress or anxiety (Allen, 2015). Considering such, an overabundance of adolescents who are simply trying to form their identities may appear to have dismissing states of mind. In addition to the natural tendency of adolescents to minimize the importance of the attachment relationship (Allen, 2015; Allen & Land, 1999; Dewitte et al., 2007), the AAI may over-classify early adolescents as dismissing based on their developmental inability to deidealize parents. To deidealize parents, adolescents must begin to view their parents as imperfect beings, remove them from their pedestals, and recognize they may be deficient providers of some attachment needs (Allen & Land, 1999; Baltes & Silverberg, 1994; Frank, Pirsch, & Wright, 1990; Hill & Holmbeck, 1986; Josselson, 1988; Kobak & Cole, 1994; McElhaney et al., 2009; Silverberg & Gondoli, 1996; Silverberg et al., 1992; Steinberg & Silverberg, 1986). This does not mean that adolescents should devalue their relationships with parents, but rather, view them realistically with both positive and negative aspects. This balanced view of parents allows adolescents to maintain parents as secure bases, while still encouraging them to explore the outside world (Allen et al., 2003). Indeed, if adolescents’ views of parents are skewed positively, they may perceive the home environment as so perfect and ideal as to discourage exploration beyond the family (Allen et al., 2003). However, reaching these balanced views of parents requires time and studies have shown that deidealization is often not achieved until late adolescence (McElhaney et al., 2009; Silverberg & Gondoli, 1996; Silverberg et al., 1992; Steinberg & Silverberg, 1986). In a recent study by Dykas, Woodhouse, Ehrlich, and Cassidy (2010), even late adolescents had skewed reconstructions of interactions with parents, indicating that balanced views had not yet been achieved. Even less is known about how early adolescents reconstruct interactions with parents over time and to what degree these influence the attachment relationship. Though younger adolescents typically endorse items suggesting their parents are perfect (Beyers & Goossens, 1999; McElhaney et al., 2009), the AAI does not differentiate between older and younger adolescents with regard to deidealization. Thus, younger Please cite this article in press as: Kelly A. Warmuth, E. 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adolescents who have not yet achieved balanced perceptions of parents may be incorrectly classified as dismissing with the AAI. Autonomy Beyond assisting with adolescent identity formation, deidealization is also predictive of greater autonomy (Frank et al., 1990). Secure attachment relationships in adolescence facilitate becoming an independent, self-reliant, and autonomous individual (McElhaney et al., 2009; Sroufe, 2005) and despite the need to gain autonomy, it is also important to preserve relationship bonds (Josselson, 1988). If parents and adolescents can collaborate to preserve their relationship during conflicts, adolescents with secure attachments may use these disagreements as opportunities to explore their autonomy, as well as refine the goal-corrected partnership (Allen et al., 2003). Indeed, parents’ promotion of autonomy and relatedness in adolescence can have long-term implications for attachment security. Allen and Hauser (1996) found that adolescents whose parents promoted autonomy and relatedness at age 14 were more likely to be classified as coherent/secure on the AAI at age 25, while adolescents whose parents inhibited autonomy behaviors were more likely to be classified as preoccupied and display passivity of thought processes. Despite providing serviceable secure bases in infancy and childhood though, some parents struggle with adolescents’ bids for autonomy and resist relinquishing control (Sroufe, Egeland, Carlson, & Collins, 2005). Although exploring autonomy can strengthen parent– adolescent secure bonds, some have suggested that adolescent efforts to establish it can complicate assessing internal representations of attachment using interviews (Allen & Land, 1999; Ward & Carlson, 1995). For instance, adolescents still working to establish autonomy are more likely to display reticence during the AAI (Ward & Carlson, 1995). Considering that passivity of discourse is coded, the reserved behaviors of younger adolescents may be misinterpreted as avoidance or dismissing states of mind. Furthermore, if adolescents are still in the process of becoming autonomous, it seems like faulty logic to employ a “secure/autonomous” classification in adolescence, when security and autonomy are separate developmental constructs which emerge at different times. Shifting attachment needs In addition to maintaining open communication, self-concept and identity formation, deidealizing parents, and autonomy development, during adolescence teens shift their attachment needs from parents to peers. As adolescents create a healthy distance from parents while establishing autonomy, transferring attachment needs to peers allows adolescents to continue to have these needs met while still making developmental gains (Allen & Land, 1999; Steinberg, 1990). This is not to say that parents are no longer necessary attachment figures, as even in young adulthood, most individuals nominated parents as attachment figures (Bretherton & Munholland, 1999; Fraley & Davis, 1997; Freeman & Brown, 2001; Markiewicz, Lawford, Doyle, & Haggart, 2006; Nickerson & Nagle, 2005; O’Koon, 1997). Instead, adolescents simply tend to gradually transfer their proximity seeking and safe haven attachment functions onto peers, while parents often remain the secure base (Allen, 2008; Hazan & Zeifman, 1994; McElhaney et al., 2009; Nickerson & Nagle, 2005; Shumaker et al., 2009; West, Rose, Spreng, Sheldon-Keller, & Adam, 1998), leading to the term “attachment figures in reserve” to describe parents’ attachment roles in adolescence (Cooper, Albino, Orcutt, & Williams, 2004; Weiss, 1982). Although the reciprocal nature of attachment commences in adolescence as teens begin to transfer attachment needs onto peers (Allen, 2008; Allen & Land, 1999), only in adulthood does attachment become truly reciprocal, with individuals acting as both providers and receivers of care (Bretherton, 1985; Cicirelli, 1983). Interestingly, although adolescents are gradually transferring attachment needs to peers, adolescents with secure attachments were likely to still nominate parents as primary attachment figures, while adolescents with insecure attachments were more likely to nominate peers, significant others, or even themselves (Freeman & Brown, 2001; Nickerson & Nagle, 2005). Despite changing attachment responsibilities, however, peer relationships in early adolescence are more likely to be affiliative rather than attachmentfocused (Allen & Miga, 2010; Hazan & Zeifman, 1999; Markiewicz et al., 2006) and thus, parents remain important (Allen & Land, 1999). Therefore, the general idea is that healthy adolescents continue to depend on parents, but not to the degree that they cannot function independently of them (Baltes & Please cite this article in press as: Kelly A. Warmuth, E. Mark Cummings, Examining developmental fit of the adult attachment interview in adolescence, Developmental Review (2015), doi: 10.1016/j.dr.2015.04.002

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Silverberg, 1994). With all these social interactions occurring and the development of more attachment relationships, pure measurement of parent–adolescent attachment becomes difficult. Because the AAI produces a single, generalized state of mind, the resulting attachment classification can be as much a measure of parent–adolescent attachment as attachment to peers, older siblings, therapists, or any number of other close relationships (Allen et al., 2003; Allen & Miga, 2010; Cassidy & Kobak, 1988; Mikulincer, Gillath, & Shaver, 2002; Thompson, 1999). Considering the continued importance of the parent–adolescent relationship and the types of longitudinal investigations developmentalists desire to pursue surrounding this relationship, assessing this construct unclouded by attachments from other sources seems worthwhile.

Development of the prefrontal cortex and executive function Finally, in addition to the aforementioned stage-salient tasks, adolescents are also undergoing significant cognitive development, particularly in the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is largely responsible for executive functions, which subserve goal-directed behavior, such as updating working memory, inhibition of irrelevant information, and cognitive flexibility (Blakemore & Choudhury, 2006; Huizinga, Dolan, & van der Molen, 2006; Miyake et al., 2000). These complex cognitive control mechanisms have been shown to still be developing into adolescence and young adulthood (Blakemore & Choudhury, 2006; De Luca et al., 2003; Huizinga et al., 2006; Romine & Reynolds, 2005; Taylor, Barker, Heavey, & McHale, 2013; Yurgelun-Todd, 2007) and performance on these tasks could affect adolescent AAI classifications in two ways. First, the AAI aims to “surprise the unconscious” (Hesse, 1999, 2008) by asking respondents to search their autobiographical memories of attachment figures for eventspecific knowledge to support respondents’ current reconstructions of the past (van IJzendoorn, 1995). To create a stable representation of the past, memories of personal events have to be reconstructed from different types of knowledge before retrieval becomes possible and this active act of remembering draws heavily on executive function (Gathercole, 1998; Rawal & Rice, 2012). However, additional research is necessary to investigate the degree to which executive function in typically developing adolescents allows them to produce the quality and quantity of autobiographical memories needed to warrant a secure classification or whether this is still developmentally out of reach. Studies with nonnormative samples have shown that reduced executive functions impede autobiographical memory retrieval (Rawal & Rice, 2012; Williams et al., 2007), but research has yet to explore this in normative adolescent samples. Second, adolescent AAI classifications could be affected by their capacity to take parents’ perspectives. Research has shown that the prefrontal cortex plays a critical role in perspective taking (Choudhury, Blakemore, & Charman, 2006), an ability that develops in parallel with brain maturation and psychosocial development but which becomes perturbed during puberty (Blakemore & Choudhury, 2006). The AAI asks participants why they think their parents behaved as they did during the participants’ childhood. With impeded perspective-taking abilities, it may be unreasonable to assume adolescents – particularly early adolescents undergoing puberty – can provide the balanced (i.e., deidealized) accounts of caregivers’ intentions required to earn secure classifications while answering such a question. Considering such, understanding the degree to which normative adolescent prefrontal cortex development impacts executive function warrants consideration with regard to using the AAI in adolescence and we strongly encourage researchers to investigate these underexplored questions before accepting the AAI as the gold standard in adolescence.

Additional weaknesses of the AAI in adolescence Taking each of these stage-salient tasks in stride, there appears a noticeable lack of fit between the AAI and the period of adolescence. Beyond those incongruences previously mentioned, there are three other notable weaknesses to using the AAI in adolescence: (1) the “generalized state of mind,” (2) retrospectively reporting on childhood experiences with parents, and (3) the apparent abundance of dismissing individuals. Please cite this article in press as: Kelly A. Warmuth, E. Mark Cummings, Examining developmental fit of the adult attachment interview in adolescence, Developmental Review (2015), doi: 10.1016/j.dr.2015.04.002

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The generalized state of mind Unlike the methods used in infancy and childhood, the AAI provides a single overarching attachment classification or a “generalized state of mind regarding attachment” rather than a measure of the current attachment quality to individual attachment figures (Allen, 2008; Allen & Land, 1999; Becker-Stoll et al., 2008; Hesse, 1999, 2008; Main et al., 1985; McElhaney et al., 2009). Though these states of mind can be useful predictors of social behavior beginning as young as early adolescence, it remains unclear precisely when these generalized states develop (Crowell et al., 1999; Feeney, 1999; Rholes & Simpson, 2004). As some studies have shown, states of mind in late adolescence and early adulthood are still developing (Kobak & Zajac, 2011; Sroufe, Carlson, Egeland, & Collins, 2005). And more importantly, research has shown that attachments to parents continue to remain strong even into late adolescence (O’Koon, 1997). If these individual attachment relationships are still relevant during this developmental period, transitioning to generalized states of mind in adolescence may be not be a stage appropriate conceptualization of attachment. Notably, characterization of attachments as specificto-specific relationships, rather than a generalized social response to others, is viewed by some as a hallmark of attachment conceptualizations, distinguishing attachment theory notions of close relationships from prior social learning and psychoanalytic notions of close relationships derived from generalized drive theories (Colin, 1996). In two separate studies using principal components analysis, inferred experiences with mothers and fathers formed distinct dimensions, indicating that relationship-specific attachment classifications were pertinent in adolescence (Haydon et al., 2012; Kobak & Zajac, 2011). Considering these recently emerging findings, the adolescent attachment field may be moving away from the generalized states of mind of the AAI and toward other developmentally appropriate attachment assessments. Specifically, as researchers continue to seek answers regarding developmental change, utilizing measures which provide relationship-specific attachment classifications in adolescence seems pivotal, as each parent–adolescent relationship may have a distinct impact on adolescent development. Likewise, connecting parent–infant/child attachments to parent–adolescent attachments may make for more meaningful longitudinal conclusions than from relationship-specific attachments in infancy and childhood to generalized states of mind in adolescence. Considering the multiple influences assessed with generalized states of mind, it is no wonder why negligible correlations between adolescents’ states of mind and their own Strange Situation classifications in infancy have been obtained (Allen & Miga, 2010; Waters, Merrick et al., 2000; Weinfield et al., 2000, 2004).1

Retrospective reporting of childhood experiences with parents Another aspect of the AAI that is fundamentally unsatisfying in adolescence is its retrospective nature, asking participants to reflect on attachment experiences starting as far back as they can remember. Asking respondents to look back on the first 12 years of life leaves something to be desired when attempting to assess the attachment relationship in early adolescence (Kriss, Steele, & Steele, 2012). Reflecting back on these experiences can be vastly different for an early adolescent – who only recently experienced these events – and an adult who has had ample time to organize these thoughts (Crowell & Treboux, 1995). With limited time to work though childhood experiences and organize them in a meaningful way, younger adolescents are likely to provide less coherent AAI narratives, which is a speech characteristic of insecure/dismissing individuals (Bakermans-Kranenburg & van IJzendoorn, 2009). Moreover, adolescent respondents are less likely to show unresolved loss, as their young age means they have likely experienced fewer losses of attachment figures (Bakermans-Kranenburg & van

1 Although the references cited here do not directly include the correlations between attachment classifications in infancy and adolescence, they include the data necessary to complete these calculations. Weinfield et al. (2000) found no correlation (r = −.024) between Strange Situation classifications at 12 months and AAI classifications at age 19 years. Similarly, Weinfield et al. (2004) found no correlation (r = −.030) between the same age groups. In early adulthood, however, Waters, Merrick et al. (2000) found a moderate correlation (r = .394) between 12 month Strange Situation classifications and AAI classifications at ages 20–22 years.

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IJzendoorn, 2009). Finally, the AAI relies on the organization of past experiences to classify individuals as earned- or continuous-secures (Hesse, 1999, 2008). According to Roisman, Fraley, and Belsky (2007), the ability to make this distinction relies on the untested assumption that these experiences become organized in the mind. However, without data to address this issue, these assumptions may be unfounded. Overrepresentation of dismissing individuals Third and finally, another possible weakness of the AAI in adolescence is its tendency to provide an overabundance of dismissing classifications. In a secondary analysis of over 10,500 Adult Attachment Interviews, Bakermans-Kranenburg and van IJzendoorn (2009) found that insecure/dismissing attachments were overrepresented in adolescence. Weinfield et al. (2004) found substantial shifts from attachment security in infancy to dismissing states of mind in adolescence with 52.4% of their 19-year-olds being classified as dismissing. Similarly, Groh et al. (2014) found that over a third of their adolescent sample was classified as dismissing with approximately 20% of their total sample shifting from secure classifications at 12 months to dismissing states of mind at age 18. Beijersbergen et al. (2012) also found this overabundance of dismissing classifications at age 14 years, with 41.6% of their sample being classified as such. Recent research suggests that attempts to gain autonomy in adolescence likely lead to higher proportions of dismissing attachments during this developmental period (Allen & Miga, 2010; Bakermans-Kranenburg & van IJzendoorn, 2009; Shaver & Mikulincer, 2010). Disregarding the apparent “blip” in adolescent attachment security, the vast majority of infants who did not experience significant negative life events – such as loss, divorce, life-threatening illness, or psychiatric disorder of a parent, as well as child life-threatening illness or physical or sexual abuse by a family member – received the same secure versus insecure attachment classification in early adulthood (Waters, Merrick et al., 2000). Therefore, when examining longitudinal data spanning adolescence to adulthood, noticeable shifts from dismissing to more autonomous states of mind may not indicate changes in attachment security, but rather may be indicative of changes in developmental period (Kobak & Zajac, 2011; Sroufe, Carlson et al., 2005). Thus, it appears that assessment difficulties in adolescence may disrupt attempted longitudinal examinations of attachment continuity. Adulthood and the Adult Attachment Interview Although discussed at length previously, noting multiple weaknesses regarding its use in adolescence, the Adult Attachment Interview (George et al., 1985, 1996) is well-suited to assessing adult child–older parent attachment in adulthood. By this time, individuals have had adequate time to reconcile and organize mental representations of childhood experiences with caregivers (Crowell & Treboux, 1995) and even individuals with negative childhood experiences are able to earn earned-secure classifications (Hesse, 1999, 2008). From adolescence to adulthood, states of mind with respect to attachment measured with the AAI appear to become more autonomous, indicating greater caregiving capacity and ability to raise secure infants (Kobak & Zajac, 2011; Sroufe, Carlson et al., 2005). This notable growth in prevalence of autonomous classifications is valuable when considering that those adults are likely to now serve as parents themselves. For better or worse, adults take their experiences with parents and apply them to their own parenting endeavors. Research has shown that individuals who recalled being accepted by parents during childhood and who currently had highly balanced relationships with parents were likely to be more sensitive and less intrusive with their own infants (Kretchmar & Jacobvitz, 2002). However, maintaining focus on the adult child–older parent attachment relationship, the AAI is a valuable assessment of this bond in adulthood. In contrast to adolescence, when the individual had not gained many of the developmental capacities necessary for this type of assessment, in adulthood the AAI is able to accurately capture state of mind with respect to attachment. Moreover, with the years between childhood and adulthood to evaluate attachment-relevant experiences with caregivers, examining coherence of transcript is a brilliant solution for tapping the individual’s organization of these events. Unlike in adolescence when incoherent narratives may reflect the minimal time allotted to organize attachment experiences, in Please cite this article in press as: Kelly A. Warmuth, E. Mark Cummings, Examining developmental fit of the adult attachment interview in adolescence, Developmental Review (2015), doi: 10.1016/j.dr.2015.04.002

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adulthood the same defense does not apply and thus, failure to provide coherent transcripts is likely to demonstrate attachment insecurity. In addition, as deidealization is likely to occur by late adolescence or early adulthood (McElhaney et al., 2009; Silverberg & Gondoli, 1996; Silverberg et al., 1992; Steinberg & Silverberg, 1986), examining whether respondents continue to idealize parents is particularly applicable in adulthood. Indeed, if adult children persist in viewing their parents as perfect individuals, this is not indicative of security. And finally, with the greater life experience that accompanies adulthood, adults have had sufficient chances to experience “loss of attachment figures leading to potential lack of resolution in their dialogue about such experiences” (Bakermans-Kranenburg & van IJzendoorn, 2009, p. 225). Therefore, unlike with younger individuals, the AAI’s measure of unresolved representations in adulthood may more accurately assess the fear of loss, unresolved loss, and unresolved abuse associated with this classification. Bearing all these points in mind, the AAI appears to follow the suggestion of Cicchetti et al. (1990) with its incorporation of stage-salient tasks of adulthood. Unfortunately, it appears that the same care was not applied when the AAI was adapted to adolescence.

Conclusions and future directions The purpose of this review is not to discredit the AAI, but rather to encourage researchers to use this influential assessment as it was originally intended: as a measure of adults’ caregiving capacity and ability to nurture secure infants. Although the AAI has demonstrated predictive validity for adults with regard to their responsiveness to their infants and infant–adult attachment (for a metaanalysis, see van IJzendoorn, 1995), growing evidence raises concern about the construct validity of this assessment during adolescence. In recent years, prominent attachment researchers have noted various weaknesses of using the AAI with adolescents (e.g., Allen & Manning, 2007; Allen & Miga, 2010; Haydon et al., 2012; Kobak & Zajac, 2011; Kriss et al., 2012; Roisman et al., 2007; van IJzendoorn & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2010), reflecting a movement away from using the AAI in adolescence and a call for a more appropriate assessment of parent–adolescent attachment. While the AAI does appear to evaluate the caregiving capacity of adolescent parents, rarely has this assessment been used for that purpose (for notable exceptions, see DeOliveira, Moran, & Pederson, 2005; Riva Crugnola, Ierardi, Gazzotti, & Albizzati, 2014) and instead has been utilized as a measure of adolescent attachment to parents. Considering for what this assessment was developed and validated, the overrepresentation of dismissing states of mind in adolescence seems to suggest that teenagers are psychologically unprepared for parenthood and not necessarily that they are insecurely attached to parents. In infancy, childhood, and adulthood, there is an obvious fit between each parent–child attachment measure and the stage-salient tasks of the developmental period for which it was designed. With new understanding about the nature of the parent–adolescent attachment relationship and increased appreciation for viewing attachment in the context of stage-salient issues, it seems clear that assessments for this developmental period require added careful tailoring to ensure that data remain relevant and capable of assimilation into the larger body of research. For example, if the pursuit of autonomy muddies parent– child attachment assessment in adolescence, it may be important for assessments developed for this age period to examine the parent–child relationship in the context of autonomy. By considering how parents respond to adolescents’ bids for autonomy (and how teens respond to parents’ attempts to maintain control), better understanding of the meaning of attachment in adolescence may be achieved. Therefore, based on the breadth of literature reviewed here, we present a series of six methodological considerations for new assessments of parent–child attachment in adolescence. First, if researchers desire to investigate an individual’s current attachments to parents, a measure that relies on current representations and not a recounting of events that happened in childhood is necessary. A methodologically rigorous, developmental measure of parent–child attachment in adolescence which focuses on current representations may importantly advance the field of attachment research and may provide further insight into discussions of continuity, what constitutes attachment, and what purposes does attachment serve during various developmental stages. Bowlby (1969, 1982) warned against getting too comfortable with a limited set of attachment assessments and “worried that too much stock was being placed in a single assessment when the child was 12 months old” (Dozier, Please cite this article in press as: Kelly A. Warmuth, E. Mark Cummings, Examining developmental fit of the adult attachment interview in adolescence, Developmental Review (2015), doi: 10.1016/j.dr.2015.04.002

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Manni, & Lindhiem, 2005, p. 314). Therefore, it is important that attachment researchers continue to evaluate existing methods and – with increased information about the stage-salient tasks of adolescence – to explore new, theoretically guided assessments in order to keep the field moving forward (Allen, 2015; Cicchetti et al., 1990). Second, in the developmental tradition, new assessments of parent–adolescent attachment should be methodologically rigorous. Measures which have honored this tradition – the Strange Situation, Separation–Reunion Procedure, Attachment Q-Set, MacArthur Story Stem Battery, and Separation Anxiety Test, and the AAI used for adults – have become well-established largely due to their strong methodological foundations. Moreover, these interview and observational procedures were all firmly ensconced in attachment theory and their respective developmental stages. Although questionnaire measures of parent–adolescent attachment have emerged over the years – for example, the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA; Armsden & Greenberg, 1987) – these methods have notable weaknesses, including proneness to response bias (Cummings, Davies, & Campbell, 2000) and inability to tap unconscious aspects of internal working models of parents (Allen, 2015). This is not to say that questionnaire measures of parent–adolescent attachment do not have merit, as measures like the IPPA have been used extensively. Rather, we suggest that attachment researchers adopt a new “gold standard” which upholds the same methodological rigor that has distinguished the developmental tradition for decades. Third, because attachment behavior tends to be most easily discerned when the individual is sick, frightened, or fatigued (Bowlby, 1969, 1982; Bretherton, 1985), attachment assessments could include threat primes to increase the accessibility of internal working models (Mikulincer et al., 2002). By alluding to physical or psychological threats – such as illness, danger, emotional distress, or prolonged separation or death of an attachment figure – through threat primes, researchers can examine to what degree individuals activate their proximity-seeking and attachment behaviors (Bowlby, 1982; Mikulincer et al., 2002). As attachment behaviors beyond infancy become more subtle and may only be visible in intensely stressful situations, other contexts or methods may prove to be more effective for classifying attachment (Allen & Miga, 2010; Schneider-Rosen, 1990). Moreover, since implementing the lengthy separations necessary to induce attachment behavior in adolescence becomes impractical and ethically untenable (Weinfield, 2005), activating representations of secure-base behavior with threat primes may be an ideal method for assessing attachment at this age. Considering that secure base behavior is fundamental to most measures of attachment in infancy and childhood, investigating the secure base construct in adolescence – particularly under varying levels of stress – remains essential (Ainsworth, 1991; Waters & Cummings, 2000; Weinfield, 2005). In childhood, a variety of story completion tasks – for example, the MacArthur Story Stem Battery (MSSB; Bretherton et al, 1990), the Attachment Story Completion Task (ASCT; Bretherton & Ridgeway, 1990), and the Manchester Child Attachment Story Task (MCAST; Green, Stanley, Smith, & Goldwyn, 2000) – have been used to measure the parent–child attachment relationship by presenting children with story stems and having them complete the stories as they envision events would unfold in their own families. Some of these stories depict threatening scenarios, like parents leaving for extended periods of time or the child getting injured, which serve to activate attachment behavior and show whether children rely on the parent as a secure base during these times of stress (Cummings, Bergman, & Kuznicki, 2014). For these reasons, assessments which ethically activate attachment behavior using threat primes are suggested for use in adolescence, as these would provide current representations of attachment security and incorporate the ever-central secure base concept. As for how such threat primes could be utilized, researchers have found that even threat-inducing words (e.g., divorce, failure, death, separation) increased the accessibility of representations of attachment figures (Bretherton, Page, Gullon-Rivera, Lenzlinger, & Munholland, 2008; Mikulincer, Birnbaum, Woddis, & Nachmias, 2000; Mikulincer et al., 2002), so adapting these story completion tasks to adolescence in an interview format with developmentally appropriate threats could allow researchers to tap the attachment relationship during this developmental period (Cummings et al., 2014). Moreover, the unconscious nature of these subliminal threats helps to control response biases, as participants are less able to deliberately shape their responses (Mikulincer et al., 2002). Fourth, to increase the power of statistical analyses, future assessments of parent–adolescent attachment should include a continuous measure of attachment security, as well as attachment categories. Recent research suggests that the variation underlying measures of attachment security is continuous Please cite this article in press as: Kelly A. Warmuth, E. Mark Cummings, Examining developmental fit of the adult attachment interview in adolescence, Developmental Review (2015), doi: 10.1016/j.dr.2015.04.002

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and not necessarily categorical (Fraley & Spieker, 2003; Haydon et al., 2012; Kobak & Zajac, 2011; Roisman et al., 2007). Despite these findings and suggestions from researchers to measure attachment on a continuum (Cummings, 1990), attachment remains largely a categorical concept. We are not suggesting abandonment of categorical classifications of attachment, but rather the addition of a continuous classification to strengthen analyses (Cummings, 2003). Being that groups created with arbitrary cut points are likely to severely compromise statistical power (Fraley & Spieker, 2003; Haydon et al., 2012) and utilizing continua increases power (MacCallum, Zhang, Preacher, & Rucker, 2002), establishing continuous scales of attachment security seems a worthwhile pursuit. Fifth, in the same tradition as the one instituted by Mary Main with the AAI, interviewers and coders of new attachment assessments should undergo extensive training and reliability checks (Roisman et al., 2007). To reduce experimenter biases and the likelihood of findings being “laboratoryspecific,” it is important for researchers to adopt this practice of standardized training and ample reliability testing (Haydon et al., 2012). Although for obvious time and cost reasons this practice is rarely instituted on this scale, this level of checks should be more prevalent in developmental research to increase scientific rigor. Likewise, it is also important that attachment assessments become more widely available. Currently, potentially due to the time investment required to use some attachment measures, the field of attachment research is viewed by some as an exclusive “guild” which resists modification to constructs, methodologies, or theory (Dozier et al., 2005). If this is indeed the case, hopefully creating more widely available assessments of attachment security – which are research-based, theorybased, and amenable to modification as new research emerges – will ameliorate this image. Sixth and finally, just as Mary Ainsworth validated the laboratory-based Strange Situation with home observations of infants (see Ainsworth et al., 1978), future assessments should undergo the same level of corroboration. Validating new measures of attachment security against classifications of infant attachment security from the Strange Situation has been common practice (Posada, 2006); however, few researchers have validated laboratory procedures against behavior in the home (Solomon & George, 2008). Therefore, to validate new measures of attachment security, these assessments should be compared concurrently with secure base behavior in naturalistic settings (Posada, 2006). Though this will require some creativity from researchers in later developmental periods, if the success of Ainsworth’s efforts were any indication, this is clearly a compelling and potentially feasible methodological exercise. In sum, new assessments of the parent–adolescent relationship should: (1) be current measures of attachment (rather than retrospective); (2) be methodologically rigorous; (3) include ethical threat primes to activate secure base behavior; (4) utilize both categories and continua; (5) involve withinlab and across-lab reliability checks; and (6) compare to naturalistic observations as a test of validity. In addition to these, future assessments need to: (7) consider stage-salient tasks along with the attachment system (Cicchetti et al., 1990), as they are mutually influential; and (8) provide attachment classifications for both the mother–adolescent and father–adolescent attachment relationships, rather than generalized states of mind. An assessment which can achieve these areas of concern will help address the gap in measuring attachment in adolescence. Although this review focuses on the developmental period of adolescence, it is important to note that development is a continuous process and thus, hard-and-fast categories bring with them some limitations. According to Piaget (1972/2008), the speed of development varies from one individual to the next and thus, not all individuals of the same age are equally developed. Though the current review made generalizations based on developmental stage, the appropriateness of these statements is contingent upon the individual’s level of development and as such, researchers are encouraged to contemplate their methodological decisions with regard to parent–child attachment with thoughtfulness and sensitivity to these differences. In conclusion, development is ever-changing and taking into account the various developmental tasks is crucial for accurate assessment of the parent–child bond. While this relationship may serve different purposes in each developmental period, it remains clear that maintenance of the parent–child relationship is important across the life span. Moreover, with the developmental gains of each stage come increased difficulties in attachment assessment. Therefore, attachment researchers need to continually evaluate existing methods as new developmental research becomes available to keep the field moving forward. If indeed attachment is a “cradle to grave” construct (Bowlby, 1969) and with each developmental period new capacities are gained, assessment of attachment must develop across the life span. Please cite this article in press as: Kelly A. Warmuth, E. Mark Cummings, Examining developmental fit of the adult attachment interview in adolescence, Developmental Review (2015), doi: 10.1016/j.dr.2015.04.002

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Acknowledgments We thank Dawn M. Gondoli and Julia M. Braungart-Rieker for their comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.

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Please cite this article in press as: Kelly A. Warmuth, E. Mark Cummings, Examining developmental fit of the adult attachment interview in adolescence, Developmental Review (2015), doi: 10.1016/j.dr.2015.04.002