Studies using retrospective methods or the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI; George, Kaplan, & Main, 1985) document similar links between early caregiving and adult internalizing symptomatology. For example, depressed adults retrospectively report lower quality early caregiving compared to a variety of control groups (Burbach & Bourduin, 1986), although this effect may be confounded with mood-related negativity biases (Blaney, 1986). Studies using the AAI, which assesses adults’ current state-of-mind (i.e., Secure-Autonomous, Insecure-Dismissing, Insecure-Preoccupied, or Unresolved) with respect to their childhood caregivers, also find that insecure AAI classifications are associated with psychopathology, although there does not appear to be specificity between internalizing disorders and the type of insecurity (van IJzendoorn & Bakermans-Kranenburg, 1996). Thus, a number of methodologies suggest that lower quality early caregiving—whether measured prospectively, retrospectively, or using representational measures such as the AAI—is a risk factor for later internalizing problems.
