Empirical Evidence Supporting the Conceptual Relatedness of Object Representations and Internal Working Models

The proliferation of new developmental and clinical theories broadly termed “psychoanalytic” demands a methodology for making systematic comparisons to establish the commonalities and distinctions among them. This article presents an empirical method for the comparative evaluation of such theories. The Mother-To-Child Object Representation / Internal Working Model Q-sort is a 100-item instrument constructed to assess the quality of the prototypical mother's object representation and internal working model of her child at age five. Object relations judges were asked to sort these items for a complex, differentiated, integrated object representation of a five-year-old, attachment judges for a secure, coherent, freely valuing internal working model of a five-year-old. Judges' criterion Q-sorts in each group yielded a composite criterion Q-sort of the quality of the prototypical mother's mental representation of her child according to each group's theoretical perspective. The Spearman-Brown correlation between the two composite criterion Q-sorts was r = .90, p < .001, suggesting that when confined to a 100-item common vocabulary, judges representing each theoretical construct agreed on the conceptual relatedness of object representations and internal working models. The theoretical constructs of object representations and internal working models share common assumptions in need of further exploration.