The Attachment-Caregiving Questionnaire as a Personality Inventory Sensitive to Psychological Vulnerabilities: A Pilot Study

Abstract

Evolution enabled the human species to form attachment relationships, where a caregiver looks after a needy attacher. In early-life interactions with a parent-caregiver, the child-attacher acquires adaptive durable information—the attachment dimensions—which become part of their personality. As such, the dimensions affect vulnerability to psychological conditions, but the precise nature of this link remains controversial. With this pilot study, we addressed this issue. Considering a sample of 67 psychotherapy patients, we tested (H1) the expected connections between dimensions and specific vulnerability to psychological conditions and (H2) the capability of a self-report to detect such links. We relied on the Attachment-Caregiving Questionnaire (ACQ) to measure seven dimensions and test the hypotheses by (1) investigating the correlation between the patients’ dimensions and their symptoms and (2) building logistic regression models to test whether the dimensions can predict vulnerability to specific symptoms. Our analysis demonstrated that almost all expected dimensions could predict vulnerability to related symptoms. Given the limited sample size, one dimension could not be connected to any symptoms. This study provides preliminary support for the connections between attachment dimensions and vulnerability to clinical conditions and the ACQ’s capability in detecting such links. Further testing is required.