title: Toward assessing attachment on an emotional security continuum: comment on Fraley and Spieker (2003).
abstract: The article by R.C. Fraley and S.J. Spieker (2003) serves to remind the discipline of the possible virtues of assessing attachments on continua, a practice that has a long history in attachment research. In this commentary, the author further develops the potential contributions of this approach to assessment and advocates renewed efforts toward assessment of attachments on a single continuum of emotional security. The author contends that theory is essential as a guide for new directions in attachment assessment and that Bowlby's notions of secure base and emotional security provide the needed conceptual foundation for these further developments (E. Waters & E. M. Cummings, 2000). Moreover, challenges that have been made historically to the scoring of attachment on a security continuum are addressed. New means for continuously scoring attachment are advocated as a supplement to the primary direction of categorically assessing attachment patterns.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame, Indiana 46556, USA. ecumming@nd.edu
authors.forename: E Mark
authors.initials: EM
authors.lastname: Cummings
mesh_terms: D004644:Emotions / Q000145:classification; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D007223:Infant; D018730:Infant Behavior / Q000145:classification; D008297:Male; D015233:Models, Statistical; D009769:Object Attachment; D010552:Personality Assessment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002666:Psychology, Child / Q000145:classification / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011594:Psychometrics