The Security Scale as a measure of attachment: meta-analytic evidence of validity

ABSTRACT

This meta-analysis evaluated the psychometric properties of the Security Scale (SS; k = 57 studies), a measure specifically designed to assess attachment in middle childhood, using several criteria: stability over time, associations with other attachment measures, relations with caregiver sensitivity, and associations with theoretically driven outcomes. The SS demonstrated moderate stability and meaningful associations with other attachment measures and caregiver sensitivity. Furthermore, the SS showed significant associations with developmental correlates of attachment: school adaptation, emotional and peer social competence, self-esteem, and behavioral problem. Some effect sizes varied as a function of socioeconomic status (SES; peer social competence and maladjustment) and publication status (emotional competence, peer social competence, and self-esteem). The association between the SS and our constructs of interest were, for the most part, independent of geographical location and child gender or age. Overall, findings suggest that the SS is a robust measure of attachment in middle childhood and early adolescence.

KEYWORDS:

• The Security Scale
• attachment security
• middle childhood
• validity
• meta-analysis

Acknowledgment

We would like to thank the authors who provided the necessary statistics.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplemental material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1. When studies did not report sufficient information for the calculation of an effect size (e.g. no means, SDs, correlations, etc., and/or if authors only reported effect sizes for subscales of a particular attachment measure), the corresponding authors (n = 19) were contacted, but only five (26%) were able to provide the necessary statistics and the remaining studies were excluded.