Language use in the Adult Attachment Interview: Evidence for attachment‐specific emotion regulation

Adult attachment classification is traditionally based on qualitative coding of participants' discourse about their attachment history. Word count‐based analyses have proven useful for assessing emotional states from narrative. To expand the understanding of how language is used in emotion regulation processes related to attachment, the authors assess 102 college‐aged adults' language on the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). Autonomous adults use more emotion words and, in particular, negative emotion words. Preoccupied adults use more anger words. Disorganized adults use more experientially connected language and more death/dying words, but also use more second‐person pronouns when discussing loss. Language use during the AAI explains variability in self‐reported emotional distress above and beyond attachment classifications. Results are discussed in terms of their relevance to emotion and attachment.     

MULTIPLE ASSESSMENT OF MANAGERIAL EFFECTIVENESS: INTERRATER AGREEMENT AND CONSENSUS IN EFFECTIVENESS MODELS

Research has consistently identified poor interrater agreement among multiple assessments of managerial performance. Three alternative sources of dissensus in the effectiveness ratings were examined: rating errors, selective perceptions, and variations in criteria type or weight. As the available empirical evidence and theoretical analysis show, all three causes provide plausible reasons—though in varying degrees—for the low agreement coefficient. However, an empirical study designed to test three specific hypotheses on criterion type and criterion weights found consensus in the effectiveness models of superiors, subordinates, and peers. Consensus among different raters was high on both the role behaviors and on the personal traits of the managers as criteria for effectiveness. While these findings supported Biddle's role theory (1979), disagreement on the relative weights of these criteria was evident. These observations underscore the need for further conceptualization on the preference functions of raters as a primary source of the low convergent validity coefficients among multiple raters. Further research is also desirable on contextual and cognitive factors that may lead to shifts in criterion type and criterion weight, as well as on actual rating error tendencies among different raters.