Gagliardi, Marcantonio ORCID: 0000-0001-7275-6315 and Mitrofanova, Elina ORCID: 0000-0002-2907-6178 (2024) The Attachment-Caregiving Questionnaire as a personality inventory sensitive to psychological vulnerabilities: a pilot study. Psychology International, 6 (2). pp. 578-589. ISSN 2813-9844 (Online) (doi:https://doi.org/10.3390/psycholint6020034)

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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.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	** Article version: VoR ** From MDPI via Jisc Publications Router ** History: received 04-04-2024; rev-recd 22-04-2024; accepted 28-04-2024; epub 30-04-2024; collection 01-06-2024. ** Licence for VoR version of this article: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Uncontrolled Keywords:	caregiving; logistic regression; psychological vulnerability; attachment dimension; personality; symptom
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology R Medicine > R Medicine (General) R Medicine > RT Nursing
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Education, Health & Human Sciences Faculty of Education, Health & Human Sciences > School of Human Sciences (HUM)
SWORD Depositor:	Publications Router
Last Modified:	07 Jun 2024 10:46
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/47094

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