Boosting attachment security promotes prosociality: The mediating effect of moral disengagement.

While attachment security is known to promote prosocial behaviour, a closer examination is needed to clarify the active mechanism in this relationship. We addressed this issue by examining the mediation effect of moral disengagement in two studies. Participants were assigned to the control priming group or the attachment security priming group. After the priming procedure, they completed the measurements of a sense of security, moral disengagement and prosocial behaviour. The results from both studies showed that compared with control priming, attachment security priming enhanced prosociality. Furthermore, mediation analysis showed that moral disengagement mediated the relationship between attachment security and prosociality. The present findings extend the understanding of the underlying mechanisms of attachment security and prosociality, and provide insights into the effectiveness of boosting attachment security in intervening in moral disengagement.

Attachment and attitudes toward children: effects of security priming in parents and non-parents.

The present two-study investigation is the first to examine whether experimentally boosting attachment security (security priming) affects attitudes in the parenting domain for both parents and non-parents. Mothers (n = 72) and childless undergraduates (n = 82) were randomly assigned to a neutral or a secure prime condition and then completed measures of implicit attitudes (a child-focused version of the Go/No-Go Association Task) and explicit attitudes (self-reported) toward children. Following the priming manipulation, mothers in the secure prime condition had more positive implicit attitudes toward their child compared to mothers in the neutral prime condition. Security priming also increased mothers' positive explicit attitudes toward their children, but only among mothers who scored high on self-reported attachment-related avoidance. No priming effects emerged among non-parents. These results provide the first evidence for a causal link between parental attachment security and parental attitudes toward children.

"Partner in Prime"? Effects of repeated mobile security priming on attachment security and perceived stress in daily life.

Lacking secure attachment representations is associated with vulnerability to mental and physical health problems, perhaps mediated by increased susceptibility to stress and impaired emotion regulation. Even though cognitive representations of self and others tend to favor confirmation over information, research has shown that adult attachment security can be positively influenced. In a randomized control trial using a mixed between- and within-subjects design, participants (N = 112) were mobile primed with attachment security stimulating visualization tasks, over a 7-day period. Self-reported attachment security was unchanged; however, reduced attachment avoidance and perceived stress and increased resilience and self-compassion scores were obtained up to one week after the last prime. Participants who reported less effort and more pleasure in carrying out the visualization tasks experienced the highest gains. Results highlight the potential of mobile attachment security priming for intervention, but also the differential potential of such intervention for people with different attachment orientations.

Secure attachment imagery facilitates help-seeking and help-acceptance in psychosis.

OBJECTIVES: People with psychosis delay accessing recommended treatments, resulting in poor healthcare outcomes and increased risk of relapse. Means of improving help-seeking and help-acceptance could reduce duration of untreated psychosis (DUP). This study examined the role of attachment style in help-seeking and help-acceptance in psychosis. DESIGN: We used an experimental design to test the effect of attachment imagery priming on help-seeking and help-acceptance intentions, in a sample with self-reported psychosis. The independent variables were attachment imagery condition (secure vs. avoidant) and time (pre- vs. post-prime). The dependent variables were state paranoia, help-seeking intentions and help-acceptance intentions. METHODS: We used an online research platform to recruit people with psychosis (n = 61). Participants were randomly allocated to the secure or avoidant attachment priming condition. All completed measures of state paranoia, help-seeking, and help-acceptance, before and after priming. RESULTS: In comparison with the avoidant condition, secure attachment imagery resulted in reduced paranoia and increased help-seeking and acceptance intentions, all with large effect sizes. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study to use an experimental design to assess the role of attachment style in help-seeking and help-acceptance in a clinical sample. Attachment style is causally linked to behavioural intentions that contribute to DUP. Clinicians should assess attachment and help-seeking and acceptance, highlight these in formulation, and prioritise in treatment planning. Interventions that enhance help-seeking and acceptance could improve access to recommended treatments and reduce DUP.

The Effects of Repeated Attachment Security Priming on Social Anxiety and Attention Bias: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

BACKGROUND: Although the clinical utility of attachment security priming has been suggested in recent years, the effect of attachment security priming on social anxiety and its core symptoms (i.e., attention bias) remains unspecified. Therefore, the present study explored the potential effectiveness of repeated attachment security priming in alleviating social anxiety and attention bias among Chinese college students. METHODS: Fifty-six college students with high social anxiety were randomly assigned to the attachment security priming group (n = 30) or control group (n = 26). The priming group completed seven attachment security priming sessions over 2 weeks (every 2 days), and the control group was assigned to a waitlist for 2 weeks. RESULTS: The results revealed that individuals in the priming group reported less social anxiety after 2 weeks of security attachment priming, and those in the control group did not change significantly. The results also showed that there was no significant change in the attention bias of individuals with social anxiety before and after the intervention. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings indicate that attachment security priming is a promising alternative intervention option for social anxiety. The potential clinical implications of security attachment priming are discussed.

Attachment Security Priming Affecting Mating Strategies Endorsement among College Students.

Exposure to environmental cues reflecting potential threats to future survivability is associated with a stronger endorsement of short-term mating strategies. Less is known, however, about the effects of safety and security cues. In four studies, we examined the effects of attachment-related security cues compared to neutral cues on preferences for short- and long-term mating strategies. Preferences were assessed using self-report and behavioral measures. In line with Life History Theory (LHT) and our hypotheses, exposure to attachment-related security cues was mainly associated with a stronger preference for long-term mating strategies and a weaker preference for short-term strategies. Our internal meta-analysis of the experimental security manipulations across studies provided further support for the association between state attachment security and endorsement of mating strategies. We also found some predictable effects of gender and relationship status. Implications for LHT and attachment theory are discussed. (139 words).

The role of anxious attachment in the continuation of abusive relationships: The potential for strengthening a secure attachment schema as a tool of empowerment.

Remaining in an abusive relationship is a strong risk factor for (re)victimization. Due to the relational nature of intimate partner violence attachment theory offers a useful framework for better understanding its dynamics. Within two studies we worked on individual differences regarding imagined attitudes when confronted with intimate partner violence as being the victim. Our first study showed that high level of attachment anxiety is a risk factor for willingness to remain when imagining a hypothetical abusive relationship incidence. The second study presented the effectiveness of security priming in reducing the willingness to remain when imagining being in an abusive relationship and showed that this effect was the strongest in the case of participants with higher levels of attachment anxiety. These findings extend our understanding of the dynamics behind remaining in an abusive relationship and suggest the use of attachment security schemas as an effective technique for inclusion in interventions against (re)victimization.

Do emotion regulation strategies mediate the attachment-paranoia association? An experimental study of repeated attachment imagery priming and stress buffering.

OBJECTIVES: Paranoia describes unfounded interpersonal threat beliefs. Secure attachment imagery attenuates paranoia, but limited research examines mechanisms of change and no studies examine how secure imagery may be implemented most effectively in clinical practice. In this study, we tested: (a) the causal impact of secure, anxious, and avoidant attachment imagery on paranoia and anxiety, (b) whether emotion regulation strategies mediate these relationships, and (c) whether secure imagery buffers against social stress. DESIGN: We utilized a longitudinal, experimental design. METHOD: A general population sample with high non-clinical paranoia (N = 265) completed measures of paranoia, anxiety, and emotion regulation strategies. Participants were randomly allocated to secure, anxious, or avoidant conditions and repeated an imagery prime for four days prior to a social stress task. RESULTS: Relative to anxious and avoidant imagery, secure imagery decreased state paranoia and anxiety. These associations were not mediated by state emotion regulation strategies, and secure imagery did not buffer against stress. Exploratory analyses on trait variables revealed that: (a) hyperactivating strategies mediated the association between attachment anxiety and paranoia, and (b) suppression mediated the association between attachment avoidance and paranoia. CONCLUSIONS: Secure attachment imagery reduces state paranoia and anxiety and could be incorporated into psychotherapies to attenuate clinical paranoia. Measurement of state emotion regulation was problematic. Attachment imagery does not buffer stress; further research is required to test whether secure imagery facilitates recovery from stress. Attachment style is likely to account for trait paranoia via attachment-congruent emotion regulation strategies. Research is now needed to determine if these strategies can be targeted to alleviate paranoia in clinical populations.

Attachment Security Priming Delayed Negative Information-Related Attentional Disengagement Among Anxiously Attached Individuals: Evidence From Behavioral and Functional MRI Experiments.

Although attachment security has been found to attenuate people's experience of unpleasant information, how it modulates the attentional process toward such information remains unknown. The present study examined this issue by employing the dot-probe task in functional MRI. After completing the Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised questionnaire (ECR-R), 39 participants were asked to complete the dot-probe task in two conditions: the attachment security priming condition and neutral priming condition. The behavioral results revealed that individuals with high level of attachment anxiety exhibited larger attention disengagement from negative traits in the security priming condition than in the control condition. Correspondingly, the brain regions involved in attention regulation and shifting, such as the posterior cingulate and bilateral parietal area, were less activated among high anxiously attached individuals in the security priming condition. These results suggest a role of attachment security priming in regulating the emotional response in anxiously attached individuals during the attentional stage.

Secure Attachment Priming Amplifies Approach Motivation for Infant Faces Among Childless Adults.

Existing studies have indicated that priming secure attachment alters adults' neural responses to infant faces. However, no study has examined whether this effect exists for motivational behavioral responses, and none of the previous studies included adult faces as a baseline to determine whether the security prime enhances responses to human faces in general or infant faces alone. To address this limitation, the current study recruited 160 unmarried and childless adults in the first phase, and all of them completed a battery of questionnaires, including the Interest in Infants, the Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR), and State Adult Attachment Measure (SAAM). A week later, after priming, 152 (76 security-primed vs. 76 neutrally primed) participants completed the SAAM and a behavioral program assessing their motivational responses to both adult and infant faces (i.e., liking, representational, and evoked responses). A manipulation check showed that the security prime was effective. Then, generalized linear mixed-effects models (GLMMs) showed that security priming enhances adults' liking, representational, and evoked responses (three components of the motivational system) only to infant faces and not to adult faces. Moreover, hierarchical regression analysis indicated that, even after security priming, there was a substantial linear relationship between positive motivation toward infant faces and the state of adult secure attachment. In summary, this study demonstrated for the first time that promoting the state of adult secure attachment can effectively enhance the effect size of the baby face schema. The current results were interpreted according to Bowlby's view of the attachment behavioral system.

How does attachment imagery for paranoia work? Cognitive fusion and beliefs about self and others mediate the impact on paranoia and anxiety.

OBJECTIVES: Paranoia describes unfounded and distressing interpersonal threat beliefs. Secure attachment imagery has been shown to attenuate paranoia and anxiety in non-clinical and clinical groups, but little is known about the differential effects of anxious and avoidant imagery or mechanisms of change. In this study, we tested the impact of secure, anxious, and avoidant attachment imagery on paranoia, anxiety, and help-seeking intentions. We also examined hypothesized mechanisms of change, specifically whether cognitive fusion and negative self- and other-beliefs mediate these relationships. DESIGN: This study utilized an experimental, cross-sectional design. METHODS: A large (N = 303), international general population sample with high levels of non-clinical paranoia completed a series of measures before and after engaging in secure, anxious, or avoidant imagery. RESULTS: Relative to anxious and avoidant attachment imagery, secure attachment imagery reduced paranoia and anxiety and increased help-seeking intentions. Cognitive fusion and negative self- and other-beliefs mediated the impact of attachment imagery on paranoia and anxiety, but not help-seeking. CONCLUSIONS: In line with attachment and cognitive theory, secure attachment imagery is effective in reducing paranoia and anxiety and works by reducing cognitive fusion and negative self- and other-beliefs. These novel findings suggest that the secure imagery task could be incorporated into cognitive and behavioural therapies to reduce distressing interpersonal threat beliefs and associated negative affect, and increase help-seeking intentions. PRACTITIONER POINTS: When working with people experiencing paranoia, secure attachment imagery may be effective in reducing state paranoia and anxiety and improving help-seeking intentions. Attachment imagery works by influencing beliefs about self and others, and the degree to which people are fused with their beliefs. In clinical practice, the rationale for the imagery task fits well with psychological models of paranoia and the secure imagery task can be introduced as a way to cope when struggling with distressing beliefs about self and others, and feeling overwhelmed by these fears.

The Study of Security Priming on Avoidant Attentional Biases: Combining Microsaccadic Eye-Movement Measurement With a Dot-Probe Task.

Microsaccades are small fixational eye movements that have shown to index covert attentional shifts. The present experiment combined microsaccades with performance measures from a dot-probe task to study influences of attachment security priming on the attentional biases of individuals high in attachment avoidance. Security priming is an experimental manipulation aimed at boosting felt security. Using a randomized, mixed design, we measured differences in attentional vigilance toward angry and neutral faces as a function of priming (neutral vs. secure) and attachment avoidance. Individuals high in avoidance habitually tend to withdraw from, or otherwise dismiss, emotionally salient stimuli. Here, we operationalized attentional withdrawal based on both task performance in the dot-probe task and microsaccadic movements. In addition, unlike previous studies where priming salience for the individual participant has been unclear, we used a standardized narrative method for attachment script assessment, securing an indication of how strongly each participant was primed. Dot-probe data significantly captured the link between avoidance and attentional disengagement, though from all facial stimuli (angry and neutral). Although microsaccadic movements did not capture avoidant attentional disengagement, they positively correlated to dot-probe data suggesting measurement convergence. Avoidance was associated with weaker security priming and no overall effect of priming on attention was found, indicating a need for further exploration of suitable priming methods to bypass avoidant deactivation. Our results provide a first indication that, as an implicit looking measure, microsaccadic movements can potentially reveal where early attention is directed at the exact moment of stimulus presentation.

The Impact of Repeated Attachment Priming on Paranoia, Mood and Help-Seeking Intentions in an Analogue Sample.

Attachment security priming effects therapeutic change in people with depression and anxiety. Preliminary studies indicate that visualising secure attachment memories also reduces paranoia in non-clinical and clinical groups, probably due to a decrease in cognitive fusion. Benefits to clinical populations depend on the sustainability of these effects and the impact on help-seeking behaviours. The combination of paranoia and an insecure-avoidant attachment style is likely to be a particular barrier to help seeking. We used a longitudinal experimental design to test the impact of repeated attachment priming on paranoia, mood and help-seeking intentions and whether cognitive fusion mediates these effects. Seventy-nine people with high levels of non-clinical paranoia, aged 18-50 years (M = 20.53, SD = 4.57), were randomly assigned to a secure or insecure-avoidant priming condition. Participants rehearsed the visualisation prime on four consecutive days and were assessed on standardised measures of paranoia, positive and negative affect, help-seeking intentions and cognitive fusion. A series of mixed-model analyses of variance showed that security priming decreases paranoia, negative affect and cognitive fusion and increases positive affect and help seeking, compared to insecure-avoidant priming. Examining the impact of primed attachment (rather than measured attachment style) allows us to draw conclusions about the causal processes involved; mediation analyses showed indirect effects of the primes on paranoia and negative affect through cognitive fusion. With a growing understanding of (1) the impact of security priming on paranoia, affect and help-seeking behaviours, (2) causal mechanisms and (3) sustainability of effects, security priming may be developed into a viable intervention for clinical populations.

Enhancing the "Broaden and Build" Cycle of Attachment Security in Adulthood: From the Laboratory to Relational Contexts and Societal Systems.

Attachment theory emphasizes both the importance of the availability of caring, supportive relationship partners, beginning in infancy, for developing a sense of safety and security, and the beneficial effects of this sense of security on psychosocial functioning and physical and mental health. In this article, we briefly review basic concepts of attachment theory, focusing on the core construct of attachment security and present evidence concerning the ways in which this sense can be enhanced in adulthood. Specifically, we review findings from laboratory experiments that have momentarily enhanced the sense of attachment security and examined its effects on emotion regulation, psychological functioning, and prosocial behavior. We then review empirical findings and ideas concerning security enhancement by actual relationship partners, non-human symbolic figures, and societal systems in a wide variety of life domains, such as marital relationships, psychotherapy, education, health and medicine, leadership and management, group interactions, religion, law, and government.

The Effectiveness of Attachment Security Priming in Improving Positive Affect and Reducing Negative Affect: A Systematic Review.

: Attachment security priming has been extensively used in relationship research to explore the contents of mental models of attachment and examine the benefits derived from enhancing security. This systematic review explores the effectiveness of attachment security priming in improving positive affect and reducing negative affect in adults and children. The review searched four electronic databases for peer-reviewed journal articles. Thirty empirical studies met our inclusion criteria, including 28 adult and 2 child and adolescent samples. The findings show that attachment security priming improved positive affect and reduced negative affect relative to control primes. Supraliminal and subliminal primes were equally effective in enhancing security in one-shot prime studies (we only reviewed repeated priming studies using supraliminal primes so could not compare prime types in these). Global attachment style moderated the primed style in approximately half of the studies. Importantly, repeated priming studies showed a cumulative positive effect of security priming over time. We conclude that repeated priming study designs may be the most effective. More research is needed that explores the use of attachment security priming as a possible intervention to improve emotional wellbeing, in particular for adolescents and children.

Boosting attachment security to cope with threats: Behavioral and ERPs findings.

Attachment security describes a sense of safety and security felt by individuals and promotes mental health. The mechanism by which attachment security buffers against psychological threat remains unclear, however. Here, we explored how attachment security attenuates the response to threatening information using a signal detection theory (SDT) and event-related potentials (ERPs) approach. Participants were assigned to an attachment security priming condition or a control condition. After a priming procedure, behavioral data and electroencephalography (EEG) signals were recorded while participants categorized threatening and neutral pictures. Our behavioral results revealed that attachment security biased participant responses to categorizing the two types of pictures; participants in the control condition exhibited a tendency to categorize stimuli as threatening, whereas those in the attachment security condition tended to categorize stimuli as neutral. Meanwhile, attachment security priming modulated early attention processes, reflected by an increased P200. The findings reported here suggest that attachment security buffers against external threats by modulating individual response preferences, the effects of which manifest in the early stages of attentional processing.

Priming attachment security improves attitudes towards a range of therapies.

We sought to understand how attachment orientation influenced attitudes towards different types of psychological therapies. In two studies, we (1) examined attachment orientation as a predictor of attitudes towards different therapies and (2) tested whether attachment security priming could improve attitudes. Study 1 (n = 339) found associations between attachment orientation and attitudes towards, and likelihood of using different therapies. Positive and negative attitudes about different therapies mediated the relationship between attachment avoidance and likelihood of use. Study 2 (n = 412) showed that primed security (vs. neutral prime) improved attitudes towards relational, non-relational and distanced-relational therapies for those with a fearful-avoidant attachment orientation. For relational and distanced-relational therapies, the mechanism of this effect was increased cognitive openness. Attachment orientation is a determinant of therapy attitudes and anticipated help-seeking behaviour. Priming security may promote open-minded decision-making about some therapies. Findings are discussed with relevance to attachment theory, research and clinical practice.

Security priming improves attentional processing to infant emotions among insecurely attached women: The different roles of supraliminal and subliminal priming.

In two ERP experiments, we examined the attention-related mechanism involved in perceiving infant emotions following exposure to security priming. Specifically, we examined how security priming affected securely and insecurely attached women. We found that both supraliminal and subliminal security priming resulted in increased attention allocation in anxiously and avoidantly attached women but had no effect on securely attached women. Moreover, we also found that supraliminal and subliminal security priming differed in their effectiveness in increasing attention allocation among anxiously and avoidantly attached women. Supraliminal security priming were more effective for anxiously attached women, whereas subliminal security priming were more effective for avoidantly attached women. The implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

Effects of repeated attachment security priming in outpatients with primary depressive disorders.

BACKGROUND: The aim of this study was to assess the potential effectiveness of secure attachment priming in outpatients with depressive disorders. METHODS: Forty-eight participants engaged in secure attachment priming or neutral priming in the laboratory (Time 1), after which they received three daily consecutive primes via text message (Times 2-4), aimed at maintaining the effects from Time 1. A follow-up one day later (Time 5) was also included. Dependent measures were assessed at Times 1, 4 and 5. RESULTS: Participants in the secure attachment priming condition experienced higher felt-security than the control group at all time-points, indicating that the felt-security benefit was maintained through repeated priming. Secure priming had a greater impact on reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression in comparison to the control prime, though the differences were only significant at Time 4. LIMITATIONS: The moderate sample size limited our statistical power. CONCLUSIONS: This study was the first experiment using repeated secure attachment priming within a clinical sample. Our findings have potential clinical implications; security priming could be used alongside other treatments to improve outcome. Recommendations for further research are discussed.

Attachment and prejudice: The mediating role of empathy.

In two studies, we examined the novel hypothesis that empathy is a mechanism through which the relationship between attachment patterns and prejudice can be explained. Study 1 examined primed attachment security (vs. neutral prime), empathy, and prejudice towards immigrants. Study 2 examined primed attachment patterns (secure, avoidant, anxious), empathy subscales (perspective taking, empathic concern, personal distress), and prejudice towards Muslims. Across both studies, empathy mediated the relationship between primed attachment security and low prejudice levels. The findings suggest that enhancing felt security and empathic skills in individuals high in attachment-avoidance may lead to reduced prejudice.