Nancy Kaplan

Bio: Nancy Kaplan is an academic researcher from University of California, Berkeley. The author has contributed to research in topics: Attachment measures & Predictability. The author has an hindex of 4, co-authored 4 publications receiving 4515 citations.

Security in infancy, childhood, and adulthood: A move to the level of representation.

Abstract: We are grateful to the Institute of Human Development, Berkeley, and to the Society for Research in Child Development for funding that made the study of our sample at 6 years possible. In its earlier phases, the Social Development Project was supported by the William T. Grant Foundation, by the Alvin Nye Main Foundation, and by Bio-Medical Support Grants 1-444036-32024 and 1-444036-32025 for studies in the behavioral sciences. The Child Study Center at the University of California was invaluable in its provision of subjects and in the training provided for our observers and examiners. The National Center for Clinical Infancy Programs provided support and assistance to Nancy Kaplan. This project would not have been possible without the direction and assistance provided by Donna Weston and by Bonnie Powers, Jackie Stadtman, and Stewart Wakeling in its first phases. For the initial identification of infants who should be left unclassified-an identification critical to the present study-we gratefully acknowledge both Judith Solomon and Donna Weston. Carol George participated in the designing of the sixth-year project; Ruth Goldwyn served as adult interviewer; and Ellen Richardson served as the child's examiner. The videotapes and transcripts of the sixth-year study were analyzed by Jude Cassidy, Anitra DeMoss, Ruth Goldwyn, Nancy Kaplan, Todd Hirsch, Lorraine Littlejohn, Amy Strage, and Reggie Tiedemann. Mary Ainsworth, John Bowlby, Harriet Oster, and Amy Strage provided useful criticism of earlier versions of this chapter. The overall conceptualization was substantially enriched by suggestions made by Erik Hesse.

Predictability of Attachment Behavior and Representational Processes at 1, 6, and 19 Years of Age: The Berkeley Longitudinal Study.

Abstract: This chapter summarizes the current findings from the Berkeley longitudinal study of attachment. Here we describe what we have learned to date regarding the attachment-related trajectories taken by 42 participants in our sample, and report striking overall predictability of behavioral, representational, and linguistic processes from infancy to 6 years, and then to 19 years of age. We trace these developments separately via initial infant ‘attachment category’ (“secure,” “insecure-avoidant,” or “insecuredisorganized”1; see category descriptors below), and when possible, we refer as well to the continuous scales associated with the Strange Situation and the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). At the time of this writing, a handful of cases have yet to be analyzed, and therefore only the simplest of tests have been conducted, and no exact statistics can yet be given. Our longitudinal study began with the assessment of attachment in infancy, utilizing Mary Ainsworth’s Strange Situation procedure. Although laboratory-based, this procedure had its origins in Ainsworth’s early adherence to the traditions of ethology, which focus upon the behavior of organisms in their natural environments. Thus, well prior to devising the Strange

Japanese children's family drawings and their link to attachment

Abstract: This study explored the applicability of family drawings as a tool to estimate attachment security in a sample of Japanese six-year-olds (N = 47), applying Kaplan and Main's (1986) Family Drawing system. Maternal secure/insecure attachment status judged by the Adult Attachment Interview predicted family drawings' secure/insecure distinction produced by Japanese six-year-olds. However, insecure Japanese drawings took forms not seen in the original Berkeley drawings, such as a lineup of faces alone. Further examination of the Japanese children's drawings using global rating scales (Fury, Carlson, & Sroufe, 1997) yielded significant gender differences, rarely reported in the attachment literature, with girls scoring higher in scales that predict attachment security and boys scoring higher in scales that predict attachment insecurity. However, attachment security, as captured in the drawings, was not related to attachment security, observed behaviorally using Main and Cassidy's (1988) sixth-year reunion syste...

Romantic Love Conceptualized as an Attachment Process

Abstract: This article explores the possibility that romantic love is an attachment process--a biosocial process by which affectional bonds are formed between adult lovers, just as affectional bonds are formed earlier in life between human infants and their parents. Key components of attachment theory, developed by Bowlby, Ainsworth, and others to explain the development of affectional bonds in infancy, were translated into terms appropriate to adult romantic love. The translation centered on the three major styles of attachment in infancy--secure, avoidant, and anxious/ambivalent--and on the notion that continuity of relationship style is due in part to mental models (Bowlby's "inner working models") of self and social life. These models, and hence a person's attachment style, are seen as determined in part by childhood relationships with parents. Two questionnaire studies indicated that relative prevalence of the three attachment styles is roughly the same in adulthood as in infancy, the three kinds of adults differ predictably in the way they experience romantic love, and attachment style is related in theoretically meaningful ways to mental models of self and social relationships and to relationship experiences with parents. Implications for theories of romantic love are discussed, as are measurement problems and other issues related to future tests of the attachment perspective.

Attachment styles among young adults: a test of a four-category model

Abstract: A new 4-group model of attachment styles in adulthood is proposed. Four prototypic attachment patterns are defined using combinations of a person's self-image (positive or negative) and image of others (positive or negative). In Study 1, an interview was developed to yield continuous and categorical ratings of the 4 attachment styles. Intercorrelations of the attachment ratings were consistent with the proposed model. Attachment ratings were validated by self-report measures of self-concept and interpersonal functioning. Each style was associated with a distinct profile of interpersonal problems, according to both self- and friend-reports. In Study 2, attachment styles within the family of origin and with peers were assessed independently. Results of Study 1 were replicated. The proposed model was shown to be applicable to representations of family relations; Ss' attachment styles with peers were correlated with family attachment ratings.

A Secure Base. Parent-Child Attachment and Healthy Human Development. New York (Basic Books) 1988.

Abstract: * Caring for children * The origins of attachment theory * Psychoanalysis as art and science * Psychoanalysis as a natural science * Violence in the family * On knowing what you are not supposed to know and feeling what you are not supposed to feel * The role of attachment in personality development * Attachment, communication, and the therapeutic process * Developmental psychiatry comes of age

Adult attachment, working models, and relationship quality in dating couples.

Abstract: Three studies were conducted to examine the correlates of adult attachment. In Study 1, an 18-item scale to measure adult attachment style dimensions was developed based on Kazan and Shaver's (1987) categorical measure. Factor analyses revealed three dimensions underlying this measure: the extent to which an individual is comfortable with closeness, feels he or she can depend on others, and is anxious or fearful about such things as being abandoned or unloved. Study 2 explored the relation between these attachment dimensions and working models of self and others. Attachment dimensions were found to be related to self-esteem, expressiveness, instrumentality, trust in others, beliefs about human nature, and styles of loving. Study 3 explored the role of attachment style dimensions in three aspects of ongoing dating relationships: partner matching on attachment dimensions; similarity between the attachment of one's partner and caregiving style of one's parents; and relationship quality, including communication, trust, and satisfaction. Evidence was obtained for partner matching and for similarity between one's partner and one's parents, particularly for one's opposite-sex parent. Dimensions of attachment style were strongly related to how each partner perceived the relationship, although the dimension of attachment that best predicted quality differed for men and women. For women, the extent to which their partner was comfortable with closeness was the best predictor of relationship quality, whereas the best predictor for men was the extent to which their partner was anxious about being abandoned or unloved. It is generally believed that the nature and quality of one's close relationships in adulthood are strongly influenced by affective events that took place during childhood, particularly within the child-caretaker relationship. Yet, only recently have social psychologists begun to integrate work on adult love relationships with developmental theory and research on the nature and functioning of parent-child relations (Hartup & Rubin, 1986; Kazan & Shaver, 1987;Hinde, 1979;HindeS Shaver & Hazan, 1988; Shaver, Hazan, & Bradshaw, 1988; Shaver R Weiss, 1982,1986). Of particular interest has been the extent to which a child's early attachment relationships with caretakers shape important beliefs about the self and social world, which then guide relationships in adulthood. Recently, Hazan and Shaver (1987) have used infant attachment theory (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978; Bowlby, 1982,1973,1980) as a framework for examining how adult love relationships are related to early parent-child interactions. The