Effects Of Attachment Orientation Research Articles

Different Effects of Attachment Anxiety and Avoidance on Attention to Changing Facial Expressions

AbstractAttachment orientation has been reported to influence visual attention and cognitive decisions regarding facial expressions. However, previous studies have reported mixed results regarding the effects of attachment orientation. This study aims to examine how attachment anxiety and avoidance affect judgment and attention allocation during free viewing of dynamic facial expressions. Although we did not find any association between attachment orientation and the reaction time to judge the timings of changes in facial expressions, the relationship between attachment orientation and attention was found. When viewing the appearance of anger, attachment avoidance had a positive relationship and attachment anxiety had a negative relationship with looking time to the eye area. When the eye‐tracking data were divided into 12 consecutive intervals of 1 s each, the attachment orientation had different relationships with visual attention based on the type of emotion presented. We discuss possible explanations for these results and directions for further research in cross‐cultural contexts.

Emotional reactions to daily workload: The moderating role of attachment orientations

ABSTRACTAttachment theory provides compelling theoretical grounds to expect that attachment orientations, i.e. attachment anxiety and avoidance, influence our emotional reactions to job stressors. In spite of that fact, the role of attachment orientations in attenuating or exacerbating emotional reactions to job stressors has been ignored by organisational researchers so far. The main purpose of our diary study, therefore, was to analyse, whether attachment anxiety and avoidance moderate our daily emotional reactions to daily workload. Additional main effects of attachment orientations on daily emotional experiences were also analysed. Multilevel analyses of diary data from 340 participants revealed moderator effects of attachment avoidance. In detail, global and co-worker-specific avoidance interacted with workload in predicting negative emotions. Regarding positive emotions, co-worker-specific avoidance interacted with workload. In addition, global attachment anxiety and avoidance were positively related to negative emotional experiences at work. The negative relationship between co-worker-specific avoidance and positive emotional experiences at work was significant by trend. Taken together, current findings demonstrate attachment orientations’ contribution to our understanding of interindividual differences in daily emotional reactions to daily job stressors, and in daily work-related emotions. In sum, they suggest highly avoidant employees as a risk group in the working population.

The Differential Effects of Attachment Orientations on the Perception of Facial Emotional Expressions

The present study investigated the differences of perception of facial expressions among different attachment orientations. The study was conducted with 356 university students (202 female and 154 male). The participants were given Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised (ECR-R) scale to assess their adult attachment style and Morph Movie Task to assess their sensitivity to emotion information. The research has demonstrated that attachment security of childhood influences on cognitive and emotion development, providing a framework for the later relationships. Given the importance of social functioning on wellbeing, it is crucial to understand the possible underlying mechanism of impairments. For that purpose, this study focused on the perception of facial expressions which serves as the general emotional cue in social interactions. In order to examine the perceptual differences, morph video tasks have been used. It has been hypothesized that attachment anxiety is related to increased sensitivity to the changes in emotional information, whereas avoidant individuals are expected to disregard the incoming information. The results for categorical analysis revealed that dismissing individuals detected both the offset and onset of the emotion later compared to secure and preoccupied participants and preoccupied individuals detected the offset earlier than fearful individuals. On the other hand, the hierarchical regression analysis of attachment dimensions showed that only attachment avoidance predicted the late detection of both onset and offset scores. The possible mechanisms underlying the differential effects are discussed.

Direct and indirect effects of attachment orientation on relationship quality and constraint commitment in married couples

ABSTRACTThis study examined the associations between attachment orientation, relationship quality, and constraint commitment. It tested the prediction that insecure attachment would be negatively associated with constraint commitment, that relationship quality would be positively associated with constraint commitment, and that there would be an indirect effect of attachment insecurity on lower constraint commitment through lower relationship quality. Parallel research questions were advanced to examine if there were corresponding partner effects. Predictions were tested on 628 married couples. Tests of actor-partner interdependence revealed that attachment insecurity was associated with lower constraint commitment for both husbands and wives, and that husbands’ attachment insecurity was associated with wives’ lower constraint commitment. These same tests revealed a positive association between relationship quality and constraint commitment for husbands and wives. Tests of actor-partner interdependence mediation models revealed that attachment insecurity was indirectly associated with lower constraint commitment through lower relationship quality for both husbands and wives, and that husbands’ attachment insecurity was associated with wives’ lower constraint commitment through wives’ lower relationship quality. This study extends previous research on attachment and commitment by demonstrating that an insecure attachment orientation is associated with perceptions of lower constraint commitment through lower relationship quality, suggesting that relationship quality plays an important role in explaining the association between attachment orientation and constraint commitment.

Romantic gift giving as chore or pleasure: The effects of attachment orientations on gift giving perceptions

In two studies we introduce Attachment theory as a fresh consumer research perspective on the study of gift giving perceptions among individuals in romantic relationships. We explore the intricacies of romantic gift giving as affected by the interplay between long-lasting individual dispositional variables and relationship-specific variables. In Study 1 we show that when provided with descriptions of unknown persons' attachment orientations and their emotional needs in romantic relationships, participants can accurately predict those persons' gift giving perceptions. In Study 2 we directly assess the links between dispositional attachment orientations and gift giving perceptions as well as the underlying processes through self-reports of participants currently in romantic relationships. We find that self-esteem and relationship satisfaction influence the link between attachment orientations and gift giving perceptions. We also provide implications for future research and practitioners.

Strategies for attachment site locations and twist of the intraarticular anterior cruciate ligament graft.

We modeled an intraarticular anterior cruciate ligament graft and investigated the effects of attachment orientation and twist of the graft on its isometry during quadriceps muscle loading. Physiologic levels of quadriceps muscle loads were applied to 15 intact cadaveric knees. We measured the changes in distance between points on the tibia and femur for knee flexion angles between 0 degree and 120 degrees using a three-dimensional digitizer. Selected points on the tibia and femur, representing graft attachment sites, allowed us to model the graft as a broad band. Distance was used to approximate graft fiber length. A 180 degrees twist in the graft significantly reduced the maximal range of changes in distance when the graft was attached in the anteroposterior direction. Range is defined as the difference between the largest and smallest changes in distance among the fibers of the graft for a given angle of flexion. This reduction enhanced isometry among the fibers of the graft. Enhanced isometry would be expected to enhance load sharing among these fibers, thereby increasing the overall strength of the graft. For a graft 10 mm wide and 4 mm thick, the dimensions of a typical patellar tendon graft, the best overall isometry was found when the breadth of the graft was attached to the tibia in the mediolateral direction, to the femur along the most isometric line, and with a 180 degrees twist in the graft.