ABSTRACT
Bowlby claimed that attachment has significant implications for human beings ‘from the cradle to the grave’. The notion that the effects of attachment might endure beyond childhood and throughout the lifespan has fuelled significant lines of research relating to attachment in adulthood. Specifically, the influence of persistent (although the theory does not preclude the idea that such models can be subject to reformulation and increasing complexity over the lifespan) internal working models of the self and the self in relation to others proposed by attachment theory is hypothesised to extend into experiences of cognition, affect, and behaviour in close relationships that are encountered in adulthood. Consequently, researchers have been concerned with constructing studies that permit robust examination of such important hypotheses. In the concluding section of the previous chapter it was noted that the research on adult attachment has diverged into two distinct lines of research. These lines of research are both derived from the theoretical assumptions at the heart of Bowlby’s theory (Jacobvitz et al., 2002), yet have evolved according to underlying assumptions and measurement techniques of contrasting subcultures (Bartholomew & Shaver, 1998). Many of the distinctions between these two lines of enquiry are reflected in the manner in which researchers allied to each have approached the measurement of attachment in adulthood and it is the purpose of this chapter to outline these measurement techniques within each school of thought. It is intended that such an outline will assist readers in developing an appreciation both of the different measurement techniques that exist with regard to attachment and also of the subtle conceptual distinctions that differences between them reflect. Such an appreciation is important (a) so that sport researchers will be able to make informed and conceptually sensible decisions when adopting an attachment perspective, and (b) so that research conducted in sport is developed in accordance with the evolution of lines of enquiry in the broader field of attachment.
