Common and Distinct Correlates of Depression, Anxiety, and Aggression: Attachment and Emotion Regulation of Sadness and Anger

Abstract

Drawing from attachment and emotion theories, we tested a model whereby emerging adults' anxious and avoidant attachment would have specific associations with dysregulation and suppression of sadness and anger and would be unique correlates of emotional and behavioral problems. Participants were 383 (47% men) students between 16 and 23 years (M = 19.6, SD = 1.58) who completed a questionnaire to assess attachment, emotion dysregulation and suppression, depressive and social anxiety symptoms, and aggressive behavior. In a path model, greater anxious attachment was associated with more emotion dysregulation, whereas greater avoidant attachment was associated with greater emotion suppression. Greater sadness dysregulation was uniquely and significantly associated with depression and social anxiety but not aggression, whereas greater anger dysregulation was associated with aggressive behavior but not depression and anxiety. Also, participants with elevated attachment insecurities reported heightened emotional and behavioral problems. Anxious attachment had the most pervasive impact on all forms of symptoms, either directly or indirectly via emotion dysregulation. Yet, there was also evidence that a focus on regulation of sadness, relative to anger, identified unique links with depression and social anxiety, relative to aggressive behavior. Attachment, ER, and Adjustment 4 Common and Distinct Correlates of Depression, Anxiety, and Aggression: Attachment and Emotion Regulation of Sadness and AngerIn classic attachment theory, early childhood experiences with caregiving are described as the foundations for the formation of a general working model of relationships, which is also sometimes referred to as attachment orientation or attachment style (Bowlby, 1969(Bowlby, , 1973(Bowlby, , 1980Cassidy, 1994). By adolescence and into adulthood, the working model has been described as a general conception of the mental representations of the self (e.g., beliefs about one's worthiness) and others (e.g., expectations about the availability and responsiveness of others) (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007. Along with the development of a working model, early interactions, which include caregivers' assisting children in their nascent attempts to regulate emotions and, later, coregulation and support in self-regulation, are also described as essential for the later formation of intra-individual emotion regulation (ER) skills and competencies (Brumariu, 2015;Brumariu &

Attachment and emotion regulation: A person‐centred examination and relations with coping with rejection, friendship closeness, and emotional adjustment

“…Descriptive statistics for all unstandardized measures and correlations between measures are reported in Table . These findings were in the expected directions and consistent with findings of previous studies (Brenning & Braet, ; Clear et al , ; Gardner & Zimmer‐Gembeck, ). More specifically, the correlations showed that attachment avoidance and anxiety were positively inter‐related and associated with higher emotion dysregulation, suppression, withdrawal, rumination, depressive, and anxious symptoms, but lower friendship closeness.…”

“…Our findings also support the converse to be true, that more elevated attachment insecurities coupled with greater maladaptive ER responses appear to be a significant risk factor for poorer overall functioning (Brenning & Braet, ; Clear et al , ; Gardner & Zimmer‐Gembeck, ; Mikulincer & Shaver, ; Zimmer‐Gembeck et al , ). Both the correlational and person‐centred approaches provide further empirical support that insecure internal working models are significant correlates of more maladaptive coping responses, perceiving less support from others, and greater emotional maladjustment.…”

“…For those more secure in their attachment orientation, they are more likely to seek closeness and support from others in their environment or have more comforting internalized attachment figures available to them (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2019;Mikulincer et al, 2003;Zimmermann, 1999). Those who are more anxious in their attachment orientation can come to overly rely on hyperactivating strategies, whereby they report being overwhelmed by the emotions they experience and endorse increasingly energetic attempts to maintain or develop greater closeness to others (Brenning & Braet, 2013;Clear, Gardner, Webb, & Zimmer-Gembeck, 2019;Mikulincer & Shaver, 2019). Individuals who are more avoidant report more reliance on deactivating strategies whereby they endorse attempts to minimize their emotions, avoid closeness and interdependence, and prefer self-reliance (Besser & Priel, 2009;Brenning & Braet, 2013;Mikulincer, & Shaver, 2019;Mikulincer et al, 2003).…”

“…Indeed, much of the conceptual literature has identified that an individual's capacity to regulate emotions is a natural extension of the attachment system (Allen & Miga, 2010;Cassidy, 2008;Mikulincer & Shaver, 2019;Zimmer-Gembeck et al, 2017). Moreover, there is empirical evidence supporting the attachment model of ER and its associations with overall adjustment (Brenning & Braet, 2013;Clear et al, 2019;Zimmer-Gembeck et al, 2017). Yet, empirical investigations have only examined attachment in relation to ER, rather than considering within-person interactions or patterns across these interrelated constructs using a person-centred methodology (Bergman, Von Eye, & Magnusson, 2006;Bergman & Wangby, 2014).…”

The self-fulfilling prophecy of insecurity: Mediation effects of conflict communication styles on the association between adult attachment and relationship adjustment

“…Expression of anger is at the very core of emotional functioning of anxiously attached partners (e.g. Clear et al, 2019; Watt et al, 2017) and is likely to lead to a reactive conflict style. Moreover, hostile communication has been relatively strongly linked with relationship dissatisfaction in both sexes in Woodin’s (2011) meta-analysis.…”