Emotional availability in the mother-infant dyad as related to the quality of infant-mother attachment relationship.

Dyadic emotional availability and infant-mother attachment relationship were examined in 687 Israeli dyads. Concurrent assessments used the Strange Situation procedure (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978) for evaluating infants' attachment relationship, and the Emotional Availability Scales (Biringen, Robinson, & Emde, 1993) for evaluating the quality of mother-child interaction. It was found that higher scores on the Emotional Availability Scales were associated with infant attachment security. In addition, it was found that the Emotional Availability Scales discriminated between insecure-ambivalent and secure attachment classification, but were not informative about unique characteristics of emotional availability in dyads with avoidant and disorganized infants. Our findings contribute to the cross-cultural validation of Emotional Availability Scales against infants' attachment security.