An analogue of agoraphobic avoidance as attachment-related symptomology

As a model of attachment-related agoraphobic coping the College Activities Scale was developed to assess accompanied exploration style. Indices of reliability and validity were favorable. The scale was administered to 103 undergraduate women along with the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire, the Parental Bonding Instrument and the Affective Control Scale. Contrary to attachment theory predictions, correlations between ratings of parents and exploration styles were generally not significant. As predicted students rating their mothers low in caring were likely to have accompanied exploration styles, but so were those who described very caring mothers. As expected, greater paternal overprotection and lower maternal care were related to greater fear of emotions. High fear of emotions was related to an accompanied exploration style, but so was low fear. Extremely high maternal care ratings made interpretations difficult. Results are discussed as partially supporting attachment theory and highlighting issues of idealization of parenting.