Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

from the MacArthur Juvenile Adjudicative Compe-

tence study,has found that young adolescents may be

less likely than older individuals to benefit from brief

teaching interventions targeted at improving their under-

standing of basic legal concepts, such as the role of

judges and attorneys. It may be even more difficult to

teach youth how to apply legal concepts to their own

cases and how to reason about legal decisions. Given the

high rates of legal deficits among young adolescents and

the increasing numbers of adolescents who are being

found incompetent, research in this area is greatly

needed.

Jodi L. Viljoen

See also Capacity to Waive Rights; Juvenile Offenders;

Mental Health Needs of Juvenile Offenders

Further Readings

Grisso, T. (2005). Evaluating juveniles’ adjudicative

competence: A guide for clinical practice.Sarasota, FL:

Professional Resource Press.

Grisso, T., Steinberg, L., Woolard, J., Cauffman, E., Scott, E.,

Graham, S., et al. (2003). Juveniles’ competence to stand

trial: A comparison of adolescents’ and adults’ capacities as

trial defendants. Law and Human Behavior, 27,333–363.

Scott, E. S., Reppucci, N. D., & Woolard, J. L. (1995).

Evaluating adolescent decision making in legal contexts.

Law and Human Behavior, 19,221–244.

Viljoen, J. L., & Grisso, T. (in press). Prospects for

remediating juveniles’ adjudicative incompetence.

Psychology, Public Policy, and the Law.

ADULTATTACHMENT

INTERVIEW(AAI)

The Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), developed by

Mary Main and associates, has been identified as an

effective, psychometrically sound instrument with which

to measure an individual’s internal working model

or state of mind regarding childhood attachment. The

potentially detrimental influences of poor recall, social

desirability, and naive lying associated with self-report

measures of childhood attachment are substantially

bypassed with the AAI. The AAI does not make classifi-

cations based primarily on reported events in childhood

but rather on the thoughtfulness and coherency with

which the adult is able to describe and evaluate these

childhood experiences and their effects.

The AAI is a structured, semiclinical 20-question

interview designed to elicit the individual’s account of

his or her childhood attachment experiences, together

with his or her evaluations of those experiences on

present functioning. It explores the quality of these

childhood relationships and the memories that might

justify them. The AAI is transcribed verbatim, with all

hesitations carefully recorded and with only the tran-

script used in the analysis of the interview.

The AAI results in five classifications of state of mind

regarding childhood attachment, which parallel those

derived from M. D. S. Ainsworth’s system, which is

based on the “Strange Situation.” Briefly, this procedure

entails having the child enter an unfamiliar laboratory

setting with a stranger present, filled with toys, with his

or her caregiver. The caregiver then leaves twice and

returns twice over a 20-minute period. Based on their

responses, individuals are classified into one of the five

attachment categories described below. Individuals with

a Secure state of mind regarding attachment value

relationships and grow to desire intimacy with others.

Individuals classified as Dismissing tend to be devaluing

of relationships. Such individuals may idealize relation-

ships from their past but are cut off from related feelings

or dismiss their significance. They may also be derogat-

ing of attachment in that they demonstrate a contemptu-

ous dismissal of attachment relationships. Individuals

with a Preoccupied state of mind are described as con-

fused and unobjective. They may seem passive, vague or

angry, conflicted, and unconvincingly analytical. The

Unresolved category deals specifically with loss and

abuse, and the Cannot Classify category is used when an

individual does not fit clearly into any of the other clas-

sifications. Individuals categorized into one of the two

disorganized patterns (i.e., Unresolved or Cannot

Classify) of attachment can always be assigned to a best-

fitting organized (Secure, Dismissing, Preoccupied) clas-

sification as well. That is, all individuals are believed to

have one overriding organized state of mind regarding

childhood attachment.

Several studies have examined the psychometric

properties of the AAI (see Marinus H. van Ijzendoorn

and Marian J. Bakermans-Kranenburg, 1996, for a

summary). The AAI state-of-mind classifications are

stable across 5-year periods, within 77% to 90%. One

study found that individuals’ response to the Strange

Situation at 1 year of age was highly correlated (80%)

to their AAI classification 20 years later. The AAI has

Adult Attachment Interview (AAI)——— 5

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