Differences between pregnant women with secure and fearful attachment patterns with respect to transition to motherhood

Ability Emotional Intelligence, Attachment Models, and Reflective Functioning

“…The few previous studies regarding the relationship between EI and attachment security ( Kafetsios, 2004 ; Lanciano et al, 2012 ; Cherry et al, 2013 ; Altaras Dimitrijević et al, 2020 ) have reported that individual differences in ability EI are associated with quality of attachment, showing that securely attached individuals perform better on ability EI tasks, however, these studies might be flawed because they rely on self-report measures of attachment security. Kafetsios (2004) and Lanciano et al (2012) used the four-item Relationship Questionnaire (RQ; Bartholomew and Horowitz, 1991 ), while Cherry et al (2013) administered a short form of the Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR-SF; Wei et al, 2007 ), and Altaras Dimitrijević et al (2020) used both the Modified Experiences in Close Relationship-Revised (M-ECR-R; Fraley et al, 2000 ) and the Revised Questionnaire for Attachment Assessment (QAA-R; Hanak, 2004 , 2010 ). In addition, findings from these four studies are rather controversial; Kafetsios (2004) reported a positive correlation between ability EI and both secure and avoidant attachment, Lanciano et al (2012) and Altaras Dimitrijević et al (2020) found a significant and negative association between ability EI and both Anxiety and Avoidance attachment dimensions, whereas Cherry et al (2013) found that attachment avoidance was significantly negatively correlated with total EI ability scores.…”