Adult attachment and emotional processing biases: An Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) study

Dan, Orrie; Raz, Sivan

doi:10.1016/j.biopsycho.2012.06.003

Cited by 55 publications

(55 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…According to screening criteria (Zilber et al, 2007; Chavis and Kisley, 2012; Dan and Raz, 2012), 65 females met the criteria for experiment. Participants were assigned to three attachment groups according to their score on the anxiety and avoidance subscales of the ECR questionnaire.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…According to Zilber et al (2007), Chavis and Kisley (2012), and Dan and Raz’s (2012) criteria, those scoring higher than 1 SD above the mean on the anxiety subscale and lower than 1 SD below the mean on the avoidance subscale were assigned to the anxiously attached group; those scoring higher than 1 SD above the mean on the avoidance subscale and lower than 1 SD below the mean on the anxiety subscale were assigned to the avoidantly attached group; those scoring lower than 1 SD below the mean on both the anxiety and avoidance subscales were assigned to the securely attached group. The mean and standard deviations of anxiety and avoidant subscale for each attachment group were presented in Table 1 .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Differences in anxious and avoidant attachment may predict the perception of, and processing biases toward, certain types of emotional information. Indeed, the behavioral patterns displayed by avoidantly and anxiously attached individuals have been shown to be opposite in almost every respect (Dan and Raz, 2012). Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the neurophysiological processes of infant face recognition in different attachment styles, especially in anxiously and avoidantly attached individuals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Adult Attachment Styles Associated with Brain Activity in Response to Infant Faces in Nulliparous Women: An Event-Related Potentials Study

Ran

et al. 2017

Front. Psychol.

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Adult attachment style is a key for understanding emotion regulation and feelings of security in human interactions as well as for the construction of the caregiving system. The caregiving system is a group of representations about affiliative behaviors, which is guided by the caregiver’s sensitivity and empathy, and is mature in young adulthood. Appropriate perception and interpretation of infant emotions is a crucial component of the formation of a secure attachment relationship between infant and caregiver. As attachment styles influence the ways in which people perceive emotional information, we examined how different attachment styles associated with brain response to the perception of infant facial expressions in nulliparous females with secure, anxious, and avoidant attachment styles. The event-related potentials of 65 nulliparous females were assessed during a facial recognition task with joy, neutral, and crying infant faces. The results showed that anxiously attached females exhibited larger N170 amplitudes than those with avoidant attachment in response to all infant faces. Regarding the P300 component, securely attached females showed larger amplitudes to all infant faces in comparison with avoidantly attached females. Moreover, anxiously attached females exhibited greater amplitudes than avoidantly attached females to only crying infant faces. In conclusion, the current results provide evidence that attachment style differences are associated with brain responses to the perception of infant faces. Furthermore, these findings further separate the psychological mechanisms underlying the caregiving behavior of those with anxious and avoidant attachment from secure attachment.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Adult Attachment Styles Associated with Brain Activity in Response to Infant Faces in Nulliparous Women: An Event-Related Potentials Study

Ran

et al. 2017

Front. Psychol.

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“…Studies indicate that, in response to stress, the insecure attachment is related to a heightened adrenocortical activity, heart rate and skin conductance, which is consistent with the hypothesis that attachment insecurity leads to deficits in emotion regulation (Gander and Buchheim, 2015). The majority of neurophysiological studies of adult attachment use self-report measures (Carpenter and Kirkpatrick, 1996; Kim, 2006; Laurent and Powers, 2007; Rochman et al, 2008; Kiss et al, 2011; Dan and Raz, 2012). Only a few studies use narrative interview measures of attachment like the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) and the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System (AAP; Beijersbergen et al, 2008; Buchheim et al, 2009; Fraedrich et al, 2010; Holland and Roisman, 2010; Behrens et al, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System on Oxytocin and Cortisol Blood Levels in Mothers

Krause

Pokorný

Schury

et al. 2016

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Oxytocin, a small neuropeptide of nine amino acids, has been characterized as the “hormone of affiliation” and is stimulated, for instance, in mothers when interacting with their offspring. Variations in maternal oxytocin levels were reported to predict differences in the quality of care provided by mothers. In this study, the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System (AAP) as a valid measure to assess attachment representations was used as an activating attachment-related stimulus. We investigated whether the AAP induces a release of oxytocin in mothers with a secure attachment representation and a stress-related cortisol response in mothers with an insecure attachment representation. Therefore, pre-post effects of AAP administration on plasma oxytocin and serum cortisol levels were investigated in n = 44 mothers 3 months after parturition. Oxytocin levels increased from pre to post in the significant majority of 73% participants (p = 0.004) and cortisol decreased in the significant majority of 73% participants (p = 0.004). Interestingly, no association between alterations in oxytocin and cortisol were found; this suggests taking a model of two independent processes into considerations. These results show that the AAP test procedure induces an oxytocin response. Concerning the results within the four AAP representation subgroups, our hypothesis of a particularly strong increase in oxytocin in secure mothers was not confirmed; however, in secure mothers we observed a particularly strong decrease in cortisol. Effect sizes are reported, allowing the replication of results in a larger study with sufficient sample size to draw final conclusions with respect to differences in OT and cortisol alterations depending on attachment representation. When interpreting the results, one should keep in mind that this study investigated lactating mothers. Thus, the generalizability of results is limited and future studies should investigate non-lactating healthy females as well as males and include a control stimulus condition.

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“…Several neurophysiological studies of adult attachment assessing the autonomic nervous system, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis or frontal electroencephalography (EEG) asymmetry used self-report measures (Carpenter and Kirkpatrick, 1996; Kim, 2006; Laurent and Powers, 2007; Rochman et al, 2008; Zhang et al, 2008; Kiss et al, 2011; Dan and Raz, 2012), while other studies used narrative interview measures of attachment such as the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) and the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System (AAP; Beijersbergen et al, 2008; Buchheim et al, 2009; Fraedrich et al, 2010; Holland and Roisman, 2010; Behrens et al, 2011; Leyh et al, 2016). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Reaction Time Experiment on Adult Attachment: The Development of a Measure for Neurophysiological Settings

Wichmann

Buchheim

Menning

et al. 2016

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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In the last few decades, there has been an increase of experimental research on automatic unconscious processes concerning the evaluation of the self and others. Previous research investigated implicit aspects of romantic attachment using self-report measures as explicit instruments for assessing attachment style. There is a lack of experimental procedures feasible for neurobiological settings. We developed a reaction time (RT) experiment using a narrative attachment measure with an implicit nature and were interested to capture automatic processes, when the individuals’ attachment system is activated. We aimed to combine attachment methodology with knowledge from implicit measures by using a decision RT paradigm. This should serve as a means to capture implicit aspects of attachment. This experiment evaluated participants’ response to prototypic attachment sentences in association with their own attachment classification, measured with the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System (AAP). First the AAP was administered as the standardized interview procedure to 30 healthy participants, which were classified into a secure or insecure group. In the following experimental session, both experimenter and participants were blind with respect to classifications. One hundred twenty eight prototypically secure or insecure sentences related to the eight pictures of the AAP were presented to the participants. Their response and RTs were recorded. Based on the response (accept, reject) a continuous security scale was defined. Both the AAP classification and security scale were related to the RTs. Differentiated study hypotheses were confirmed for insecure sentences, which were accepted faster by participants from the insecure attachment group (or with lower security scale), and rejected faster by participants from secure attachment group (or with higher security scale). The elaborating unconscious processes were more activated by insecure sentences with potential attachment conflicts. The introduced paradigm is able to contribute to an experimental approach in attachment research. The RT analysis with the narrative procedure might be of interest for a broader variety of questions in experimental and neurophysiological settings to capture unconscious processes in association with internal working models of attachment. An electrophysiological model based on preliminary research is proposed for assessing the preconscious neuronal network related to secure or insecure attachment representations.

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Adult attachment and emotional processing biases: An Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) study

Cited by 55 publications

References 71 publications

Adult Attachment Styles Associated with Brain Activity in Response to Infant Faces in Nulliparous Women: An Event-Related Potentials Study

Adult Attachment Styles Associated with Brain Activity in Response to Infant Faces in Nulliparous Women: An Event-Related Potentials Study

Effects of the Adult Attachment Projective Picture System on Oxytocin and Cortisol Blood Levels in Mothers

A Reaction Time Experiment on Adult Attachment: The Development of a Measure for Neurophysiological Settings

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