Contentment Duration Mediates the Associations between Anxious Attachment Style and Psychological Distress

Abstract

Relatively little is known about the emotional processes underlying the association between adult attachment styles and psychological distress. This study aims to examine the role of contentment in terms of intensity and duration in the positive associations between anxious and avoidant attachment styles and psychological distress. A sample of 284 Chinese university students completed a self-reported questionnaire on attachment styles, intensity and duration of contentment, and anxiety and depressive symptoms. Structural equation modeling revealed that duration of contentment mediated the positive associations of anxious attachment style with anxiety symptoms [β = 0.05, p = 0.004; BC 95% CI (0.02,0.11)] and depressive symptoms [β = 0.04, p = 0.03; BC 95% CI (0.003,0.09)], model fit: χ2(259) = 455.06, p < 0.001, CFI = 0.95, TLI = 0.94, RMSEA = 0.05, SRMR = 0.07. Participants with higher anxious attachment style were more likely to report shorter duration of contentment, which was, in turn, associated with higher anxiety and depressive symptoms. The results suggest a positive emotional pathway underlying the association between anxious attachment style and psychological distress. Implications based on the findings are discussed.

The relationship between adult attachment and mental health: A meta-analysis.

“…For example, many studies have found that attachment anxiety is highly correlated with generalized anxiety (e.g., rs ≥ .47; Bekker & Croon, 2010;English et al, 2018;O'Neill & Murray, 2016). In contrast, other studies have reported a more moderate correlation between attachment anxiety and generalized anxiety (e.g., r ≤ .24; Kidd et al, 2016;Meredith et al, 2016;Ng & Hou, 2017;Patel, 2008). Similarly, one large-scale study found a very large correlation between attachment avoidance and depression (e.g., r ≥ .47; Gallagher et al, 2017;Joeng et al, 2017;Pandeya, 2017), whereas other studies have reported a moderate correlation between these variables (e.g., r ≤ .20; Bekker & Croon, 2010;Gnilka et al, 2013;Necef, 2014;Ng & Hou, 2017;Rholes et al, 2011).…”

Emotions in everyday life during social movements: Prospective predictions of mental health.

“…Positive emotions could become bipolar to negative emotions and have the power of undoing negative psychological impact of stressful situations (Hou et al, 2015; Tugade & Fredrickson, 2004; Zautra, Smith, Affleck, & Tennen, 2001). More anxious attachment was found to contribute to shorter duration of contentment in daily events, which in turn was associated with higher psychiatric symptoms (Ng & Hou, 2017). The counterregulation perspective further implicates the human tendency to attend to context-incongruent information across situations depending on activated motivational and/or emotional states (Rothermund, Voss, & Wentura, 2008).…”

For Value or for Worth? Part 2: A Neuroeconomical Thought-Action-Mood-Space Modulated by (Un-)Certainty as Sign- or Goal-tracking

“…In humans though the costs of emotions, like the one from the urge of want, and their cognitive costs can become predominant. Thus, besides some focus on duration [127,128], mainly the cost of suppressing emotions is monitored [129]. Fortunately affect dynamics are taking momen-tum also in the case of a likely alias of increased emotional effort suspected to be a pre-depressive signature of decoup-ling from usual functional connectivity: rigid emotional inertia [130]…”