Which of the following has been demonstrated in research on attachment style?

When the first subtle signs appear that a partner’s commitment to the relationship is fading, most people would probably worry and think about what can be done to prevent the loss of the relationship. At that point, many options are available, some of which are probably more effective than others. One could analyse the situation or ruminate about the implications of the partner’s withdrawal, or one could remain calm and consider that a subtle change in the partner’s behaviour might really be no threat at all. One could also confront the issue and talk to the partner, or one could seek distance to minimize potential anguish that might follow after the partner’s loss. Why do people differ in their tendencies to notice and respond to relationship threats in such ways? In this study, we consider two constructs that may be relevant to such differences, both of which have a long history in personality psychology but have not yet been studied together: attachment styles and sensitivities of the behavioural activation and inhibition systems.

Attachment styles are thought to emerge, at least in part, from early interaction patterns between infants and caregivers (Cassidy & Shaver, 1999). Based on how sensitively and consistently caregivers respond to children’s distress, children are thought to form cognitive representations, of other people and of relationships in general, which later serve as templates for adult peer and romantic relationships. Many theorists construe attachment in terms of two dimensions––anxiety and avoidance––from which four attachment types (secure, preoccupied, fearful, avoidant) can be derived (e.g., Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998).

The literature on adult attachment styles has exploded over the past 10 years (cf. Cassidy & Shaver, 1999; Simpson & Rholes, 1998), and many studies have examined how attachment styles might be relevant to predicting people’s reactions to the loss or threatened loss of an important relationship. For example, in a study of more than 5000 internet respondents, anxious attachment related to relationship dissolution responses such as emotional distress, cognitive preoccupation with the loss, angry behaviours, and dysfunctional coping, whereas avoidant attachment related to distancing and self-reliant loss responses (Davis, Shaver, & Vernon, 2003). In another study, Sharpsteen and Kirkpatrick (1997) found that anxiously attached people reported anger and irritability in jealousy-provoking situations, although they were unlikely to confront their partners about their feelings. The most common jealousy-responses among those with avoidant attachment, by contrast, tended to be sadness or low self-esteem (Sharpsteen & Kirkpatrick, 1997). The general pattern of these and similar studies (e.g., Collins, 1996; Collins & Read, 1990) suggests that anxious attachment predisposes people to respond with distress and dysfunctional intimacy-seeking to relationship threats, whereas avoidant attachment predisposes people to respond with defensive, distancing, or intimacy-avoidant strategies.

Attachment styles may not be the only important predictors of responses to relationship threats. A number of theorists have recently emphasized that people differ in the sensitivity and responsiveness of two fundamental motivational systems that are thought to also determine emotional and behavioural responses in threatening situations (e.g., Carver, Sutton, & Scheier, 2000; Gray, 1982). The first of these––the behavioural inhibition system (BIS)––is a neural system that processes threat-related information and triggers anxiety, the inhibition of ongoing behaviour, increased arousal, and threat-oriented attention in response to signals of danger. People differ in BIS sensitivity; whereas those with a highly sensitive BIS experience distress in response to even minimal threat, those with an insensitive BIS respond with little distress even to high threat (Carver & White, 1994). The behavioural activation system (BAS), by contrast, is a neural system specialized on the processing of incentive- or reward-related information. When activated by incentives, the BAS triggers positive feelings, such as hope or elation, and approach-behaviour. People with a sensitive BAS respond with engagement and approach even to minor incentives, whereas those with an insensitive BAS respond with little approach, even when strong incentives are present in the environment.

The BIS/BAS scales (Carver & White, 1994) have been developed to measure individual differences in the sensitivity of these systems. Evidence indicates that the BIS and BAS, as measured by these scales, relate to people’s risk for various forms of psychopathology, including bipolar disorder (Meyer, Johnson, & Winters, 2001), depression (Kasch, Rottenberg, Arnow, & Gotlib, 2002), and anxiety, drug abuse, and alcohol abuse (Johnson, Turner, & Iwata, 2003). The BIS/BAS scales have also been shown to predict distress and disengagement responses in threatening situations. In a study by Carver, Meyer, and Antoni (2000), for example, both BIS and BAS were relevant to the prediction of emotional distress and behavioural disengagement among women who had recently been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness (breast cancer).

Participants

Two hundred and two female undergraduate students at a university in the southern United States participated for extra credit in their psychology courses. Participants’ mean age was 20.07 (SD=2.48; range=18–48). The majority of participants endorsed White as their ethnicity (N=173, 86%), 19 (9%) endorsed Black, 8 (4%) Asian, and 2 (1%) Hispanic. All participants were required to be in a current dating/steady relationship; the mean length of this relationship was reported to be 19.63 months

Preliminary analyses

The first analysis confirmed that the manipulation of threat and attractiveness among the conditions had been successful. That is, women in the three conditions differed significantly in their ratings of perceived threat (F[2,199]=24.81,p<0.001), and in their ratings of the attractiveness of the person shown in the photograph (F[2,199]=61.57,p<0.001). Tukey HSD tests confirmed that all three conditions differed significantly on both of these manipulation check questions.

Descriptive statistics

Discussion

Adult attachment styles and BIS/BAS sensitivities were studied as predictors of distress, approach, and avoidance responses to three levels of a relationship threat. BIS and threat intensity interacted in the prediction of distress, such that, at low levels of threat, even high-BIS levels were not associated with distress. At high threat, in contrast, higher levels of BIS were strongly linked with emotional distress. This suggests that BIS sensitivity functions as a moderator in the

Cited by (37)

• Attachment and motivational systems: Relevance of sensitivity to punishment for eating disorder psychopathology

  2018, Psychiatry Research

  The relevance of disrupted attachment relationships in the development and maintenance of EDs has been proved by epidemiological and clinical studies (Caglar-Nazali et al., 2014; Dakanalis et al., 2014; Gander et al., 2015; Monteleone et al., 2017; O'Shaughnessy and Dallos, 2009). In healthy subjects, an association between insecure attachment and BIS (Ein-Dor et al., 2011) or BAS sensitivity (Meyer et al., 2005) or both (Jiang and Tiliopoulos, 2014) has been demonstrated. Recently, in a mixed sample of people affected by different EDs, the perceived low social rank and the rejection sensitivity have been found to mediate the relationship between insecure attachment style and disordered eating (De Paoli et al., 2017).

• Autistic traits and adult attachment styles

  2015, Personality and Individual Differences

  In addition, motivational processes driven by either the behavioural inhibition system (BIS) or the behavioural approach system (BAS) represent two other fundamental aspects of personality involved in determining individual differences in behaviour. Accordingly, research points to the presence of a relation between adult attachment style and BIS/BAS scales measuring general approach/avoidance tendencies and behavioural activation (Gillath, Giesbrecht, & Shaver, 2009; Meyer, Olivier, & Roth, 2005). Similarly, behavioural inhibition and approach have also been associated with autism (Mundy, 1995; Mundy, Henderson, Inge, & Coman, 2007).

Recommended articles (6)