Attachment security priming: a systematic review

Abstract

Attachment security priming has been used to shed light on the cognitive processes related to attachment internal working models as well as the cognitive substrates of people's attachment-related affect and behavior. Security primes activate a sense of attachment security by making mental representations in one's memory more accessible and salient. In the current paper, we report on a qualitative synthesis of 20 studies published in the last two years to determine the effects of security priming. We found that supraliminally administered security priming (especially via guided imagery or visualization) is associated with beneficial effects across a diverse set of domains. The effects were especially strong among anxiously attached individuals.