What’s inside the minds of securely and insecurely attached people? The secure-base script and its associations with attachment-style dimensions.

Abstract

In 8 studies the authors explored the procedural knowledge (secure-base script; H. S. Waters & E. Waters, 2006) associated with secure attachment (i.e., low scores on attachment anxiety and avoidance). The studies assessed the accessibility, richness, and automaticity of the secure-base script and the extent to which it guided the processing of attachment-relevant information. Secure attachment (lower scores on anxiety and avoidance) was associated with greater secure-base "scriptedness" of attachment narratives, greater accessibility of the secure-base script in narratives and dreams about distressing experiences, deeper processing of script-relevant information, and faster and more confident script-relevant judgments. In addition, secure participants' tendency to process secure-base information more deeply was evident even 5 days after being exposed to it and was impervious to the depletion of cognitive resources, indicating automatic processing. The discussion focuses on implications of the findings for understanding the cognitive bases of secure people's affect-regulation strategies and behavior in social relationships.