Stress and accessibility of proximity-related thoughts: Exploring the normative and intraindividual components of attachment theory.

Abstract

Three studies examine the effects of stress on the accessibility of proximity-related thoughts. In all the studies, participants reported on their attachment style, and the accessibility of proximity themes and worries in a lexical decision task was assessed upon the priming of a stress or neutral word. In Study 2, the primed stress word was semantically related to attachment themes. In Study 3, lexical decisions were made under low or high cognitive load conditions. Overall, the priming of a stress word led to increased accessibility of proximity themes, regardless of attachment style. Anxious-ambivalent people also showed high accessibility to proximity themes and worries in both neutral and stress contexts. In most conditions, avoidant persons' reactions were similar to those of secure persons. However, they showed no accessibility to proximity worries even after the priming of a semantically related word and reacted with high accessibility to these worries upon the addition of cognitive load.In his classic trilogy, Bowlby (1969, 1973, 1980) developed an ethological theory about the function, antecedents, and consequences of the activation of the attachment system in humans. However, the vast majority of attachment studies have adopted an individual differences perspective, dealing with Bowlby's (1973, 1988) statements about the effects of a person's history of attachment experiences on his or her attachment style. This trend is mainly noted in adult attachment studies, which have focused on the ways people differing in attachment style differ in the way they regulate distress. Our study attempts to integrate the normative and intraindividual components of attachment theory and to examine Bowlby's hypothesis about the effect of stress arousal on the activation of the attachment system. Specifically, we examine whether a stress context cognitively activates the attachment system in most individuals while, at the same time, examining whether and how individual differences in attachment style may color this activation.Attachment, Stress Arousal, and Distress Regulation One basic statement of Bowlby's (1969Bowlby's ( , 1973Bowlby's ( , 1980 theory is that all human beings are born with an attachment system aimed at maintaining proximity to significant others

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