Authors:
Sebastian Unger
and
Thomas Ostermann
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology and Psychotherapy, Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany
Keyword(s):
Interpersonal Attachment, Digital Application, Observation, Mental Processes, Mental Health Care, Time Series Analysis.
Abstract:
Attachment is a widely used term and basically refers to a strong emotional relationship that one person develops with another. It is often measured, for example, with the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), one of the most popular tools, or the Child Attachment Interview (CAI), an adaption of the former. Even though these are two excellent tools for measuring attachment, they are labor-intensive and therefore not suitable for quick use without an adequate training period. Moreover, the mindset towards attachment has changed over time since the development of these tools, meaning that they can still be applied, but only in specific contexts. The digital application "IU" is intended to address these two issues by being easy to learn on the one hand and leaving plenty of freedom for measurement on the other. In this observational study, the interpersonal attachment of dyads captured by the app is interpreted as three-dimensional time series and analyzed based on a Markov chains. This app
roach shows how interpersonal attachment might be determined according to the homogeneity of the Markov chains, which could probably be improved by capturing other factors such as the interactions of dyads.
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