title: Rethinking adult attachment: a study of expert consensus.
abstract: Self-report questionnaires designed to assess attachment in adulthood potentially confound global valence of relationships (e.g., liking and disliking) with attachment. The authors surveyed an international panel of experts to develop items for a new measure of attachment that systematically distinguishes between attachment and non-attachment aspects of relationships. The survey yielded a large set of items on which there is consensus in five domains: secure attachment, dismissing attachment, preoccupied attachment, positive non-attachment, and negative non-attachment. This report presents a content analysis of the core themes in each of these five domains and discusses implications of these results for conceptualizing and researching adult attachment.
authors.affiliation: Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health Sciences at the Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX 77280, USA. jallen@menninger.edu
authors.forename: Jon G
authors.initials: JG
authors.lastname: Allen
authors.forename: Helen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Stein
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Fonagy
authors.forename: Jim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Fultz
authors.forename: Mary
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Target
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D009769:Object Attachment