Activation Of Attachment System Research Articles

The role of early attachment experiences in modulating defensive peripersonal space

Selecting appropriate defensive behaviours for threats approaching the space surrounding the body (peripersonal space, PPS) is crucial for survival. The extent of defensive PPS is measured by recording the hand-blink reflex (HBR), a subcortical defensive response. Higher-order cortical areas involved in PPS representation exert top-down modulation on brainstem circuits subserving HBR. However, it is not yet known whether pre-existing models of social relationships (internal working models, IWM) originating from early attachment experiences influence defensive responses. We hypothesized that organized IWM ensure adequate top-down regulation of brainstem activity mediating HBR, whereas disorganized IWM are associated with altered response patterns. To investigate attachment-dependent modulation on defensive responses, we used the Adult Attachment Interview to determine IWM and recorded HBR in two sessions (with or without the neurobehavioral attachment system activated). As expected, the HBR magnitude in individuals with organized IWM was modulated by the threat proximity to the face, regardless of the session. In contrast, for individuals with disorganized IWM, attachment system activation enhances HBR regardless of the threat position, suggesting that triggering emotional attachment experiences magnifies the threatening valence of external stimuli. Our results indicate that the attachment system exerts a strong modulation on defensive responses and the magnitude of PPS.

Attachment style in adulthood: Attachment style moderates the impact of social support on depressive symptoms

Introduction: Research on adult attachment has flourished over the last two decades. Despite this, only one theoretical model has been proposed to outline how the attachment system works in adulthood: the model of attachment system activation and functioning in adulthood proposed by Mikulincer and Shaver. The current study tested one prediction drawn from this model, namely that attachment style would moderate the association between social support and depressive symptoms. Method: The study included a nonclinical sample of 419 adults between the ages of 18 and 84 ( Mage = 39.64 years, SD = 19.61). Participants completed a survey containing measures of attachment, perceived social support, depressive symptoms, and demographic information. Results: A model in which attachment was predicted to moderate the relationship between perceived social support and depressive symptoms was tested. Although both avoidant and anxious attachment were significantly associated with depressive symptoms, the interaction between social support and insecure attachment style differed. Higher levels of social support were significantly associated with lower levels of depressive symptoms among anxiously attached individuals, but not among avoidant individuals. Discussion: The study supports the model proposed by Mikulincer and Shaver. Attachment style acts as a moderator of the association between perceived social support and depressive symptoms. The results further underscore differences between anxiously and avoidantly attached individuals.

Attachment to God and Religious Coping as Mediators in the Relation between Immigration Distress and Life Satisfaction among Korean Americans

ABSTRACT We investigated the effect of immigration distress on Korean Americans’ life satisfaction, using attachment to God and religious coping as mediators. A sample of 214 participants was recruited from urban ethnic churches in various states, and they responded to online or offline surveys. There were two serial multiple mediation models (Models A and B) developed based on the attachment system activation model and empirical evidence. Each of the models included a pair of the two mediators: avoidant attachment to God and positive religious coping for Model A, and anxious attachment to God and negative religious coping for Model B. We initially examined the overall model fit as well as the direct and indirect effects using AMOS 21. Upon finding significant aggregated indirect effects, we examined individual indirect effects using the PROCESS macro for SPSS. Results demonstrated that Model A showed a poor model fit and Model B showed a good model fit to the observed data. Serial multiple mediation analyses provided some support for our conceptualization that distress activates the attachment to God system as an internal working model that is translated into religious coping as attachment behavior. As expected in Model B, distress was inversely associated with life satisfaction through anxious attachment to God and negative religious coping. Model A demonstrated rather complicated relations. The implications of cultural, theoretical, and methodological issues, with special regard to attachment to God and religious coping in Korean Americans as immigrants, were discussed.

Investigating the impact of supervisee attachment system activation on the supervisory relationship

ABSTRACTUsing a quasi-experimental design, the authors explored how supervisee attachment to supervisor predicted the supervisory relationship after recalling critical feedback from a supervisor. To examine effects of supervisee attachment system activation, participants were randomly assigned either to recall critical feedback from a supervisor (experimental condition) or to list objects in the room (control condition). Anxious and avoidant attachment to supervisor significantly predicted the supervisory relationship, but there were no significant differences among participants in either condition in predicting the supervisory relationship. Results are discussed in light of attachment theory, and implications for further investigating attachment dynamics in supervision are presented.

Consommations d’alcool, de cannabis et de tabac et qualité d’attachement

Substances’ consumption among young adults is a major public health problem. In the scientific literature, the links proposed with substance abuse are mostly biological, psychological and environmental. Some authors proposed to analyze these consumptions in connection with the parents-children's relationships as well as the way individuals cope with problems and regulate emotions. The present study aimed to investigate the link between alcohol consumption and attachment style. Additionally, this study wanted to investigate what are the relationships between attachment style and the tobacco and cannabis, two psychoactive substances present in polyconsumption with alcohol. We hypothesized that alcohol consumption is correlated with insecure-preoccupied attachment, that cannabis use is correlated with insecure attachment-detached and that tobacco consumption is correlated with insecure attachment in general. In order to test this, we used the AUDIT to measure the alcohol consumption, the Fagerstrom scale to measure tobacco use, the CAST to measure the consumption of cannabis, the RSQ and RQ for measuring attachment, among 88 people recruited on an internet specialized site. We counterbalanced the questionnaires in two sequences to control the possible effects of the subjects’ attachment system activation. In our sample, there are positive significant correlations between the consumptions of alcohol and cannabis (r=.45, P=.02) and the consumptions of cannabis and tobacco (r=.51 P=.03). Comparison analyzes of attachment dimensions and alchool consumption, have shown that subjects with no harmful consumption (M (E-T)=2.94 [.82]) have significantly higher means in the preoccupied attachment dimension (RSQ) ([F(2)=3.16; P=.05]) than those with harmful drinking (M (E-T)=2.38 [.61]). Subjects with harmful consumption (M (E-T)=3.23 [1.30]), in turn, tend to code higher in the detached scale (RQ) (F(2)=2.90; P=.06) than subjects with no harmful consumption (M (E-T)=2.39 [1.21]). On the other hand, correlation analysis between cannabis use and insecure-preoccupied attachment (RSQ) show that these variables tend to be inversely correlated (r=–0.31; P=10). No other significant differences or correlations were observed between attachment dimensions and the different types of alcohol consumption, tobacco or cannabis consumption. The importance of the study is discussed on the light of the link found, in our sample, between alcohol and cannabis consumption and the two subtypes of insecure attachment, preoccupied and detached.

The interplay and effectiveness of implicit and explicit avoidant defenses

Individuals high on attachment avoidance are uncomfortable with thoughts of separation and loss. The goal of this research is to answer questions about the efficacy and interplay of the explicit (conscious) and implicit (preconscious) components of mental defenses designed to avoid uncomfortable thoughts. We manipulated the presence of subliminal attachment threat primes and participants’ awareness of those primes. While undergoing condition-specific threat manipulations, participants completed measures designed to measure attachment system activation. Avoidant participants who were aware of genuine attachment threat primes behaved defensively, whereas avoidant participants who were given false warnings of attachment threat primes did not. Results suggest that avoidant defenses operate on both implicit and explicit levels and are resilient to false activation.

回避型依恋风格记忆加工的认知–情绪特点

依恋的内部工作模式是一个认知/情感性的组织，个体的依恋风格在这两个系统的转变中起到了非常重要的作用，有研究表明这两个系统处于动态平衡的状态，但很容易受压力因素的影响。回避型个体在压力状态下更容易引发抑郁、焦虑，为了避免依恋系统的激活，他们会抑制依恋相关信息的加工，表现出情绪表征的特异性；在认知加工中回避型个体则采用“自上而下”的去激活策略抑制对依恋相关负性信息的记忆加工，导致了回避型个体的非精细编码和提取失败，这需要认知努力。说明去激活策略在构建和维持回避型个体的防御性心理系统上有很大的作用。未来研究可从依恋启动、记忆加工的神经机制，以及内隐记忆等角度进行进一步探讨。 Attachment style plays an important role between the transition of the cognitive and affective or-ganization in the internal working models of attachment. Studies have shown that these two sys-tems are in a state of dynamic balance, but they are easily affected by stress factors. Avoidant indi-viduals who are under stress are more likely to be depressed and anxious. In order to avoid the activation of attachment system, they will inhibit the processing of attachment-related information, exhibiting specificity of emotional representation. In addition, avoidant individuals show controlled “top-down” suppressing manner in cognitive level to memory of attachment-related negative information, which results in rough coding and extracting failure. More researches are needed to focus on the effects of attachment activation, mechanism of encoding and retrieving with neurophysiologic methods, and implicit memory.

Can’t get you off my mind

Attachment anxiety is characterized by rumination about romantic relationships, particularly when the attachment system is activated. Two studies investigated the hypothesis that more anxiously attached individuals would experience cognitive load when attachment concerns were activated (vs. not activated). Study 1 found that more anxious persons encountering relationship threat (vs. no threat) demonstrated greater holistic processing on a shape categorization task, a type of processing reflective of cognitive load. Study 2 found that more anxious persons encountering relationship threat (vs. no threat or academic threat) exhibited slower reaction times on a Stroop task, a pattern also reflective of cognitive load. This research lends novel insight into how attachment system activation and relationship reflection pose a cognitive vulnerability for more anxious individuals.

Attachment System Involvement in Esthetic Response

framework along these lines, but provided only limited support for the role of attachment. Arguments: The present discussion article advances further explanatory advantages for an analysis of esthetic pleasure that includes attachment activation as a central component. In connection with this activation, this study takes up further research on neural correlates of the enjoyment of music and the medical outcomes of listening to music. The advantages of such an analysis also include an account of some philosophical observations about the nature of aesthetic response, specifically the orientation of esthetic feeling toward particular objects and the recurrence of certain preferred subjects for artistic depiction. Conclusions: These arguments suggest that the attachment system may play a significant role in esthetic response generally and even in some unexpected aspects of aesthetic response. At the same time, they raise further questions, for example questions concerning the mechanisms by which attachment system activation might operate in esthetic response.

Don’t Get Your Hopes Up

We examine whether lower expectations for social reward selectively applied to high intimacy contexts may help avoidantly attached individuals minimize distress from reward loss. Studies 1, 2, and 4 demonstrated that avoidant attachment was negatively associated with perceived intimacy potential in relationships involving approach of closeness (current/future partners), but not for relationships less associated with approach of closeness (ex-partners). Studies 3 and 5 manipulated the potential for intimacy among dating prospects. Avoidant attachment was negatively associated with romantic interest in high intimacy targets but not low intimacy targets. This effect was mediated by perceived responsiveness. Studies 4 and 5 rule out perceived dissimilarity to responsive targets as a mechanism. Study 6 demonstrated that avoidants' lower expectations for connection are associated with less anticipated distress from reward loss. These results suggest that avoidant individuals may circumvent attachment system activation by perceiving lower opportunity for connection when there is potential for intimacy.

Consciously identified attachment hierarchies: Cognitive accessibility of attachment figure names as a function of threat primes in a lexical decision task

Studies have linked the subliminal priming of threat-related words to heightened cognitive accessibility directed towards the names of identified attachment figures. The present study used a lexical decision task to examine the cognitive accessibility of names of individuals who formed part of participants' self-reported attachment hierarchies. We did not find support for heightened accessibility in relation to the names of (a) consciously identified attachment figures in general, (b) full-blown attachment figures, or (c) primary attachment figures. However, our data revealed that participants showed increased accessibility to mothers' names in response to threat primes. This effect was even identified in individuals who did not consider mothers to occupy a primary position in their attachment hierarchy. Results are discussed in the context of attachment system activation in early adulthood.

Sex Buffers Intimates Against the Negative Implications of Attachment Insecurity

Contextual models of relationships and recent theories of attachment system activation suggest that experiences that promote intimacy, such as sexual intercourse, may moderate the negative implications of attachment insecurity. In two independent studies, 207 couples reported their attachment insecurity, the frequency of their sexual intercourse over the past 30 days, their expectancies for their partner's availability, and their marital satisfaction, and in a 7-day diary they reported their daily sexual and relationship satisfaction and their expectancies for how satisfied they would be with their partners' availability the next day. Attachment avoidance was unrelated to marital satisfaction among spouses reporting more frequent sex, and attachment anxiety was unrelated to marital satisfaction among spouses reporting more daily sexual satisfaction. Both effects were mediated by expectancies for partner availability. These findings suggest that the effects of attachment insecurity are not immutable but vary according to the context of the relationship.

Attachment Style and Dysfunctional Career Thoughts: How Attachment Style Can Affect the Career Counseling Process

This article examines the relationship between attachment style, measured by Experiences in Close Relationships‐Revised (R. C. Fraley, N. G. Waller, & K. A. Brennan, 2000), and dysfunctional career thoughts, measured by the Career Thoughts Inventory (CTI; J. P. J. Sampson, G. W. Peterson, J. G. Lenz, R. C. Reardon, & D. E. Saunders, 1994a). Two hypotheses related to attachment style and dysfunctional career thoughts were tested with 46 adult immigrants (17 men, 29 women). Results show that both attachment anxiety and avoidance were significantly related to scores on the CTI; increased attachment avoidance also significantly correlated with decision‐making confusion and external conflict. Implications of the relationship between attachment style and dysfunctional career thoughts for the career counseling process are discussed.

Attachment-related psychodynamics

Because there has been relatively little communication and cross-fertilization between the two major lines of research on adult attachment, one based on coded narrative assessments of defensive processes, the other on simple self-reports of ‘attachment style’ in close relationships, we here explain and review recent work based on a combination of self-report and other kinds of method, including behavioral observations and unconscious priming techniques. The review indicates that considerable progress has been made in testing central hypotheses derived from attachment theory and in exploring unconscious, psychodynamic processes related to affect-regulation and attachment-system activation. The combination of self-report assessment of attachment style and experimental manipulation of other theoretically pertinent variables allows researchers to test causal hypotheses. We present a model of normative and individual-difference processes related to attachment and identify areas in which further research is needed and likely to be successful. One long-range goal is to create a more complete theory of personality built on attachment theory and other object relations theories.