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Article Excerpt
Emotional availability (EA) is a prominent index of socioemotional adaptation in the parent-child dyad. Can basic psychometric properties of EA be looked at from both variable (scale) and person (cluster) points of view in individuals and in dyads? Is EA stable and continuous over a short period of time? This methodological study shows significant short-term stability and continuity in EA as measured with individual and dyadic Emotional Availability Scales and in clusters of individuals and dyads on EA scores in 52 mothers and their 5-month-olds observed twice at home. This work documents psychometric properties of the emotional availability construct from both variable and person orientations.
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Emotional availability (EA; Emde, 1980; Emde & Easterbrooks, 1985) is a relationship construct that refers to the quality of emotional exchanges between parents and their children and focuses on the two partners' accessibility to each other and their ability to read and respond to each other's communications (Biringen & Robinson, 1991). Maternal emotional displays serve to communicate, to engage and maintain child attention, to extend social interaction, and to mark important dyadic events (Martin, Clements, & Crnic, 2002). Reciprocally, children provide multiple cues that express their emotional needs (Barnard, 1976; Barnard et al., 1989). The Emotional Availability Scales (Biringen, Robinson, & Erode, 1998) were designed to assess the EA construct through observations and ratings of parent-child interaction. A growing body of evidence using these scales shows that both parent and child components of EA relate to quality of attachment (Easterbrooks & Biringen, 2000) as well as to other aspects of the parent-child relationship (for reviews see Biringen, 2000; Pipp-Siegel & Biringen, 1998), suggesting that the EA framework can be used in "a global way to describe the overall quality of the affective relationship" between parent and child (Biringen, 2000, p. 112).
Each individual scale focuses on the behavior of one partner; however, all EA dimensions are viewed as "relationship variables" because each takes the other partner's behavior into account. Thus, the Emotional Availability Scales assess specific behaviors of individuals but at the same time constitute global ratings of dyads and emphasize joint interactional style. In this sense, the Emotional Availability Scales lend themselves to complementary analyses from individual and dyadic variable and person perspectives. In this article we adopt the generic term variable to describe the approach specific to scale analyses of individuals or dyads, and we use the generic term person to describe the holistic approach to the analyses of clusters of individuals or dyads.
The dominant approach to assessment in developmental science uses single variables, combinations of variables, or relations among variables as the main conceptual and analytical units (Hartmann & Pelzel, 2005). Here a single datum for an individual derives psychological meaning from its position relative to the positions of data from other individuals on a given dimension. "In a variable approach, the lawfulness of structures and processes in individual functioning and development is studied in terms of statistical relations among variables.... Individuals differ only quantitatively, not qualitatively, along the dimension for a certain variable" (Magnusson, 1998, pp. 45-46, emphasis added).
However, the configuration of individual variables in a system also has meaning, and information about the individual or dyad as a gestalt is of interest as well. The person approach is based on a holistic-interactionistic research paradigm to development and functioning, meaning that it sees the individual or dyad as an organized whole, functioning and developing as a totality (Magnusson & Allen, 1983). The totality derives its characteristic features and properties from interactions among its elements (the whole is more than the sum of the parts) rather than from the effect of isolated parts of the totality or as an integration of variables. In the person approach, each datum derives its psychological meaning from its place in a pattern of data representing positions on latent dimensions under study. That is, the total dynamic complex process is not understood by summing the results of single aspects; rather, the whole individual or dyad is the main conceptual and analytical unit.
The variable approach uses methods that focus on values on a scale; the person approach uses methods that focus on patterns or configurations of values in variables in individuals or in dyads. The variable approach to measurement posits that individuals or dyads assume positions on latent dimensions for relevant factors and undertakes to locate individuals or dyads on those dimension(s); the appropriate measurement technique is one that discriminates along the entire range of possible positions. By contrast, the person approach undertakes to assign individuals or dyads to clusters within a total system; the appropriate measurement technique is one that uses information about the individual or dyad to cluster it with other like individuals or dyads. In the present study, we analyzed and compared emotional availability in mothers, infants, and mother-infant dyads at the variable level through the use of individual Emotional Availability Scales and at the person level though the application of a cluster analytic procedure that groups individuals and dyads into clusters that show similar ratings on the Emotional Availability Scales.
Despite the value of the Emotional Availability Scales in increasing our understanding of parent-child socioemotional development, there is a dearth of studies that have systematically examined the psychometric properties of this measure. This paucity of research is unfortunate because the clinical and empirical value of developmental assessments rests on adequate psychometrics. Exploring the psychometric characteristics of these scales is particularly important because the extent to which variation measured by the scales represents the individual's or dyad's characteristic "emotional climate" (Biringen & Robinson, 1991) versus its contextual (stable or unstable) circumstances (perhaps reflective of a particular time or observational setting) remains clouded. More specifically, it is unclear whether EA in mothers, infants, and mother-infant dyads shows stability and continuity over a short period of time.
As with much of traditional developmental science (Hartmann & Pelzel, 2005), we were concerned in this study to assess mean level in the group across time (the developmental function) as well as variation about the mean (individual differences). "Stability" describes consistency through time in the relative ranks of mothers, infants, or dyads on the Emotional Availability Scales from the variable perspective and consistency through time in cluster membership of the individual or dyad from the person perspective. Stability applies to both the variable and person perspectives on EA. If EA showed stability, some mothers, infants, and dyads would display EA at relatively high levels at one point in time and they would display EA at relatively high levels at a second later point in time, whereas other mothers, infants, and dyads would display EA at lower levels at both times; dyads would also maintain their cluster membership over time. "Continuity" describes consistency in the group mean level of EA through time. If EA showed continuity from the variable perspective, mothers, infants, and dyads as a group would display EA at statistically the same level at one point in time and at a second point later in time. (Consistency from the person perspective is contained in the cluster analyses and cannot be easily tested because there are no mean levels to compare across time.)
Stability and continuity reflect different realms of development, and they are conceptually and statistically independent (Bornstein, Brown, & Slater, 1996; McCall, 1981). For example "stable-and-continuous" describes the situation where individuals or dyads in the group are consistent in their relative ranks or in their cluster membership over time, and the group mean level remains consistent over time. However, individuals or dyads in the group may remain relatively consistent in their ranks or in their cluster membership over time, but the group mean level could change over time (increase or decrease): "stable-and-discontinuous." And so forth, for "unstable-and-continuous" and "unstable-and-discontinuous."
There are fundamental reasons to evaluate both stability and continuity of EA. Each is descriptive and explanatory of development in its own way. Whether mothers, infants, or dyads maintain their rank order or their cluster membership through time in EA informs not only about variation in EA but also contributes to understanding its possible origins, nature, and future. Whether mothers, infants,...
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