Development and testing of a novel dimensional framework for understanding human attachment

Attachment is the deep emotional bond that every human being needs to create with another. In the prototypical case, the child attaches to their mother.

In this work, I present the Attachment-Personality Theory (APT), which proposes an enhancement of the Standard Attachment Theory (SAT) from a cognitive-clinical perspective. By focusing on the representational and dimensional nature of attachment, the APT suggests that attachment knowledge is based on seven dimensions, which constitute the core of personality. Accordingly, I outline an attachment module that functions as a seven-dimensional control system.

I empirically test the APT through (1) the Attachment-Caregiving Questionnaire (ACQ) – a clinical self-report that works as a personality inventory – and (2) the Attachment Computational Model (ACM) – an agent-based model of three attachment dimensions. The analysis of the ACQ administered on a small sample provides preliminary support to the APT and encourages using artificial pattern recognition for further analysis. The ACM generates results compliant with the theory.

Overall, this research suggests that the APT might contribute to bridging the gap between clinical psychology and engineering, favoring applications closer to psychological data. Moreover, independently of the APT, the developed clinical questionnaire and computational model can provide insights into attachment nature and novel methodological directions in synthetic psychology.