Dismissing Attachment and Global and Daily Indicators of Subjective Well-Being: An Experience Sampling Approach.

The present research examined whether a dismissing attachment style (i.e., being high in attachment avoidance and low in attachment anxiety) is a risk factor for low subjective well-being (SWB). Specifically, we examined the associations between dismissing attachment and two indicators of SWB: global life satisfaction and daily affect. Self-reports of attachment and overall life satisfaction were collected from 257 adults at an initial lab session. Afterward, experience sampling methodology was used to gather repeated measures of positive and negative affect, as well as social context, from the sample for 8 days. Our findings indicate that, on average, dismissing people reported fairly modest levels of overall life satisfaction. Moreover, they experienced relatively low levels of both negative affect and positive affect across the 8-day study period. Overall, our results suggest that dismissing people have a "muted" or dull emotional life.

Development and change in attachment: A multiwave assessment of attachment and its correlates across childhood and adolescence.

This research examines the contextual factors that facilitate development and change in attachment during later childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood using a longitudinal cohort design involving 690 children (7-19 years old) and their parents. At each wave, a variety of interpersonal variables (e.g., parent-child stress) were measured. We examined alternative developmental processes (i.e., long-term, catalytic, and short-term processes) that have not been previously distinguished in attachment research. Preregistered analyses revealed that nondevelopmental processes can explain the associations between almost all of the interpersonal variables of interest and attachment security, suggesting that previous research using traditional longitudinal methods may have misattributed nondevelopmental processes for developmental ones. For example, we found that friendship quality, although prospectively associated with attachment both in prior work and in the current study, was not developmentally associated with attachment. However, after controlling for nondevelopmental sources of covariation, we identified a number of developmental processes that may help explain change in attachment. For example, we found that initial levels of parental depression, as well as growth in parent-child stress, were related to growth in adolescent insecurity over 3 years. We also examined 12 genetic variants studied in previous research and found that they were not related to average levels or changes in attachment. These results highlight how distinguishing unique kinds of developmental processes allows for a more comprehensive understanding of attachment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Developmental trajectories of attachment and depressive symptoms in children and adolescents.

Previous research has found that insecure attachment is associated with depression. In the present study, we use an accelerated longitudinal cohort design to examine how the association between attachment and depression develops during childhood and adolescence. Specifically, 690 children from 3 distinct cohorts (grades 3, 6, and 9) completed self-report measures of attachment and depressive symptoms 3 times over 3 years. Growth curve analyses indicated that attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance were uniquely related to depressive symptoms. Higher levels of attachment anxiety and avoidance predicted higher levels of depressive symptoms over time. Additionally, changes in attachment security were associated with changes in depressive symptoms. The analyses suggest that insecure attachment and depressive symptoms co-vary and that these dynamics are evident in childhood and adolescence.

Assessing mindfulness-based cognitive therapy intervention for tinnitus using behavioural measures and structural MRI: a pilot study.

Objective: We used a minimally-modified version of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) to treat symptoms of distress associated with tinnitus.Design: Audiological screening (establishing a baseline) was conducted prior to treatment and at three time-points: pre-intervention, post-intervention and follow-up, 8 weeks after completion of training. MRI tests were also conducted at these three time-points.Study sample: Twenty-one participants were enrolled in the study, of whom 15 completed training and audiological testing and eight completed the MRI portion of the study.Results: Scores on tinnitus-related questionnaires showed a significant decline either from pre- to post-intervention or from pre-intervention to follow-up, despite no significant change during baseline. Voxel-based morphometric analysis of the structural MRI scans revealed clusters in bilateral superior frontal gyrus that exhibited significant increases in grey matter volume over the period of intervention and follow-up. Further, grey matter changes in occipital and cingulate regions correlated with declines in tinnitus handicap.Conclusions: This pilot study supports MBCT as an adequate approach for treating distressing tinnitus and suggests that neuroanatomical changes may reflect reductions in tinnitus-related severity. Although our small sample size precludes drawing strong conclusions, there is potential for assessing neuroanatomical changes due to mindfulness-based interventions in tinnitus.

Course of ante- and postnatal depressive symptoms related to mothers' HPA axis regulation.

Given high health costs of depression during pregnancy and the first postnatal year, it is important to understand mechanisms involved in the emergence and perpetuation of symptoms during this time. In a series of 2 studies, we aim to clarify bidirectional relations between mothers' physiological stress regulation-stress-related activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis-and their course of depressive symptoms. In Study 1, 230 pregnant women recruited from a women's mental health program gave 3 saliva samples in the context of psychosocial stress at 24, 30, and 36-weeks gestation. They self-reported depressive symptoms across the three trimesters of pregnancy and first year postpartum. Multilevel models revealed women with elevated salivary cortisol during pregnancy showed a course of escalating ante- and postnatal symptoms, implicating HPA hyperactivation as a precursor to worsening mood problems. In Study 2, 54 mothers from a community sample self-reported depressive symptoms at 3, 6, 12, and 18 months postnatal. At 18 months, they participated in a dyadic stress task with their infant and gave 4 saliva samples for cortisol assay. For mothers with a lifetime depression diagnosis, an escalating course of postnatal symptoms predicted a higher, flatter cortisol response profile. Together, the results of these studies suggest that for high-risk mothers, a trajectory of worsening depression may both follow from and give rise to neuroendocrine stress hyperactivation. These findings suggest greater attention is warranted to course of depressive symptoms across the ante- and postnatal period, rather than symptom levels at any given time, to characterize health risks. (PsycINFO Database Record

Mindful parenting predicts mothers' and infants' hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal activity during a dyadic stressor.

Mindfulness in the parenting relationship has been proposed to help both parents and children better regulate stress, though this has not yet been shown at the physiological level. In this study, we tested relations between maternal mindfulness in parenting and both mothers' and their infants' hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activity during a dyadic stressor 3 months later. Participants were 73 mother-infant dyads from a larger longitudinal study. At 3 months postpartum, mothers completed self-report measures of general dispositional mindfulness and parenting-specific mindfulness, as well as stressful life events. At 6 months postpartum, mother-infant dyads completed the Still Face task. Four saliva samples were collected from each dyad member for cortisol assay to index the HPA axis response. Hierarchical linear modeling of cortisol trajectories revealed a main effect of maternal parenting-specific mindfulness (mindful parenting), but not general dispositional mindfulness, on mothers' cortisol; mothers with higher mindful parenting showed steeper cortisol recovery slopes. In addition, maternal mindful parenting moderated the effect of life stress on later mother and infant cortisol. In the context of high life stress, maternal mindful parenting predicted lower infant cortisol levels, but more extended maternal cortisol elevations. Implications for a biobehavioral model of mindful parenting are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record