Lecture 19 - Attachment

Question 1

Attachment

Answer 1

“An affectional tie that one 
person or animal forms 
between him[her]self and 
another specific one – a tie 
that binds them together in 
space and endures over 
time.” 

More than connection
between 2 individuals:

Desire for regular contact

Distress upon separation

Question 2

Attachment theory history

Answer 2

Bowlby (1944, 1951)
maternal separation and
delinquency

Studied homeless orphans after ww2

Maternal separation had sig links with these kids

Believed it had ethological routes and promoted survival of offspring

 Separation protest, despair, 
detachment reflects 
operating of innate 
attachment system 
designed to promote close 
physical contact between 
infant and caregiver

Question 3

The Attachment System

Answer 3

Functions

Components

• Behavioral strategies
• Internal working models

Attachment patterns/orientations

Question 4

Proximity maintenance

Answer 4

Kids cry when separated

Keeps them near carers

Question 5

Safe haven

Answer 5

When there are threats can turn to caregiver for comfort

Question 6

Secure base

Answer 6

Need to explore the world

Use carers as a safe base to do so

When older, the carer does not need to be physically present, they can be internally present

Question 7

Components:
Behavioral Strategies

Primary

Answer 7

Primary strategy/security-based strategy
-Seeking an attachment figure for comfort and support
when distressed
-Engaging in constructive/ problem-focused ways of
dealing with distress

These allow people to meet attachment needs

If security-based strategy does not work, secondary
strategies are pursued…

Question 8

Secondary strategies

Hyperactivation

Answer 8

Hypervigilance to threat/
exaggerated appraisals of
threat

Excessive proximity-seeking of an attachment figure when distressed

Distress response involves
heightening distress (e.g,
rumination, catastrophizing)

Question 9

Secondary strategies

Deactivation

Answer 9

Hypervigilance to threat/
attention diverted away from
threat

Develops when infants learn getting access to caregivers is impossible

Avoid proximity-seeking of an attachment figure when
distressed

Distress response involves
inhibiting/suppressing distress

Plans and strategies (e.g, psychologically or behaviorally
escaping/avoiding distress)

Question 10

Components:

Internal Working Models

Answer 10

Memories

Recollections and interpretations of specific
episodes or interactions with attachment figures
-Times when attachment figure is available or not

Beliefs, attitudes, and expectations
-Beliefs involve information viewed as ‘truths’ about
oneself and others
-Attitudes involve evaluations individuals have about themselves, others, and their relationships
-Expectations involve future- oriented assumptions
regarding the self, the partner, or their relationship
(These are used to predict how future social interactions will go)

Goals and needs
-Objective wants that motivate individuals to behave in specific ways to help them obtain love and
comfort
-The primary goal of the attachment system is to
maintain/attain felt security

Plans and strategies
-Procedural knowledge about how to negotiate relationships and the behaviors needed to achieve attachment-related
goals (e.g. felt security)
e.g. what do i need to do to get love from a sig other

Question 11

Components:
Internal Working Models
How formed

Answer 11

Attachment figures shape them

Contain mental representations or schemas of the self and others

Contains info about:
Is self worthy of love and affection

Are others trustworthy/reliable

Scripts for how close relationships should unfold

Are formed by repeated interaction with caregivers

Question 12

The “Strange Situation”

Answer 12

Mary Ainsworth

Paradigm to empirically study human attachment

Individual differences…

• “Secure”
– Infant distressed but plays and seeks comfort upon
reunion
• “Anxious/ambivalent”
– Infant distressed but not reassured; preoccupied
with availability of caregiver
• “Avoidant”
– Infant does not display signs of distress upon
separation (but internal discomfort?)

Stable over time

Secure: 62%
Avoidant: 23%
Anxious/ambivalent: 15%

Question 13

The “Love Survey”

Adult attachment relationships with lover

Answer 13

Asked

Which of the following best describes your
feelings?

I find it relatively easy to get close to others and
am comfortable depending on them and having
them depend on me. I donʼt often worry about
being abandoned or about someone getting too
close to me
(secure)

I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to others; I find it difficult to trust them completely,
difficult to allow myself to depend upon them. I
am nervous when anyone gets too close, and
often love partners want me to be more intimate
than I feel comfortable being.
(Avoidant)

I find that others are reluctant to get as close as I
would like. I often worry that my partner doesnʼt
really love me or wonʼt want to stay with me. I
want to merge completely with another person,
and this desire sometimes scares people away.
(Anxious)

Posted in Lifestyle section of Rocky Mountain newspaper
-620 respondents (415 women; age: 14-82)
-Attachment styles applicable to adult romantic
relationships

Question 14

The love survey results

Answer 14

Distribution:
56% secure (62%)
25% avoidant (23%)
19% anxious/ambivalent (15%)

Mirrors strange situation test

Question 15

Correlates of insecure
attachment

Anxious

Answer 15

Anxious-ambivalence
– Jealousy
– Low self-esteem
– Indiscriminate self-disclosure

Question 16

Correlates of insecure

attachment

Answer 16

Avoidance

– Judged by others as more 
hostile
– Uncommitted sexual 
relations
– Reduce tension with 
alcohol and other 
substances (instead of 
turning to others)

Question 17

Attachment model, gender &
relationship stability
(Kirkpatrick & Davis, 1994)

Does attachment predict relationship stability?

Is there a gendered effect?

Answer 17

Does attachment predict relationship stability?

Is there a gendered effect?

• 354 dating couples

• Time 1:
• No anxious-anxious or avoidant-avoidant pairs
• makes theoretical sense—people pair with others
who fulfill expectations
• Avoidant expect clingy, dependent
• Anxious expect avoid intimacy, withdraw

• If man avoidant, relationship rated as more
negative by both partners

• If woman anxious, relationship rated as more
negative by then men (but not the women

• 7-14 months later

– Avoidant and secure men more stable than anxious
men

• 30-36 months later:

– Anxious women more stable than other women

Odd, recall:

• If man avoidant, relationship rated as more negative
by both partners

• If woman anxious, relationship rated as more
negative by then men (but not the women)

• So why are avoidant men and anxious women in
more stable relationships???

• Women are “maintainers and breakers of
relationships”
– Anxious women more active and accommodating
b/c of desire for closeness
– Compared to avoidant women, anxious & secure
women are more motivated and skilled and will try
harder to hold onto avoidant partner (even though
unhappy)
– Avoidant women less motivated and skilled

Question 18

Attachment model, gender &
relationship stability
(Kirkpatrick & Davis, 1994)

How does attachment matter

Answer 18

Attachment predicts more than satisfaction

There are more dynamics beyond satisfaction and these are affected by attachment

People can be unsatisfied but stable

Question 19

Distress and coping response
(Mikulincer et al 1993)

Israelis war

Split into 3 attachment styles and consequences

Answer 19

Can people use these as safe bases?

• 140 Israeli students assessed 2 weeks after Gulf War
• Assessed post-traumatic adjustment to missile attacks

• Residence area dangerous vs. less dangerous

• Anxious (vs. secures)
– More distress

• Avoidances (vs. secures)
– More hostility
– More somatization

• BUT, PxS interaction:
• Attachment effects significant only amongst those living in dangerous areas—stressful conditions trigger the attachment system (cf. neuroticism), like strange situation

Question 20

Coping mechanisms

Answer 20

• Secures
– Support seeking
– Safe haven is psychological resource: The believe that life adversities,
although difficult, are manageable

• Anxious/ambivalent
– Emotion focused
• Avoidant
– Distancing

• Insecures unable to work through trauma and
put distress behind them

Question 21

Anxiety & social support in lab

Like the Isreali study but in a lab

(Simpson, 1992)

Answer 21

83 dating couples

Female was told she would do an anxiety provoking task (told it would be scary but not how)

Secretly watched in the waiting room before she begins “anxiety
provoking activity”

Behaviour coded for

(1) Anxiety of woman
(2) Support seeking

RESULTS

Sig interaction

Secure: with increased anxiety, increased support seeking

Insecure - opposite, increased anxiety leads to decreased support seeking

Question 22

Physiological response to stress
(Feeney & Kirkpatrick, 1996)

Part 2 of waiting room study

Answer 22

What happens if the dating partner leaves the
room?

Dating partner sent to another room

Women perform stress inducing arithmetic task

Measure heart rate and blood pressure

(1) Baseline
(2) On task
(3) Return to baseline

• Physiological response
– Avoidants & anxious > secures

• Why not for secures?
– Knowledge of partner down the hall (vs. physical
presence)
– Psychological resource – appraised event as less
stressful

Question 23

Physiological response to stress
(Feeney & Kirkpatrick, 1996)

Part 2 of waiting room study

Why would avoidants have strong physiological
response?

Answer 23

Why would avoidants have strong physiological
response?

Although they appear to not care about separation, they do exhibit physiological
response

Overt but not covert deactivation?

Or, deactivation of attachment system itself?

Avoidance
-Disinterested in closeness
Fear of rejection (pattern of primary caregivers failing to meet one’s needs: fear of rejection
Variation in anxiety… (avoidance can be contaminated with anxiety)

Question 24

How to measure the types of avoidance?

Answer 24

We measure individual differences in attachment via two axes,

High-Low Anxiety

High-Low Avoidance

Question 25

Suppression of unwanted

thoughts study with suppressing thoughts

Answer 25

Although a primary caregiver not coming ius distressing, not everyone deals with it the same way. Perhaps dismissive people learn to turn the system off and fearful ones cannot

• Distinguishing dismissive and fearful avoidants
• “Do/don’t think about what it would be like if your partner were to leave you for someone else” (a la Wegner)
• Recall: rebound effect eliminated when ps given distraction strategies; also rebound doesn’t occur for chronically suppressed thoughts
• Write about suppressed thoughts (5-mins), vs. control

• Study 1: Dismissive-no rebound (defensive system developed to redirect attention away from unwanted thoughts)
-Over time they have learned that caregiver does not come and deactivated the system

• Study 2: Suppression associated with decreased arousal (SCR) for dismissives

• Although avoidance has a fear component in early
childhood, it becomes differentiated overtime (fearful vs. dismissive)

Question 26

Suppression of unwanted
thoughts study with suppressing thoughts

Conclusion

Answer 26

Dismissive people can do this with no cost. Zero rebound effect, they turned off their system

Fearful people see a huge rebound effect

Question 27

Conceptualization &

Measurement of adult attachment

Answer 27

Three category model (Hazan & Shaver, 1987)

Four category model: self (+ / -) & other (+ / -)
(Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1994)

Is now the dominant model

Other Positive Negative
+ve Secure Preoccupied
-Ve Dismissive Fearful

Bad psychometric properties

Also, does not reflect what you see

DO preoccupieds really have positive views of others? We do not see this

Types versus dimensions debate

Dimensions are a better way to see it

Question 28

Attachment as dimensions

Answer 28

Two dimensions (Brennan et al., 1998)

Took all measures and did a factor analysis

Supported 2 dimensions

Anxiety and vigilance concerning rejection and
abandonment (~model of self)

Discomfort with closeness and dependency,
reluctance to be intimate (~model of other)

OR
Emotion vs. behavior regulation

Monitoring and appraising events for vis a vis 
attachment goals (threshold to detect cues of rejection) - 

anxiety = a low threshold for perceiving rejection in the world (interpret everything as a rejection)

Behavior regulation: orient towards or away from
attachment figure

(once we see a threat, what do we do? Orientate towards a lot = anxious ppl in the sense that they ithiunk a lot about it

away = avoidant in the sense that they ignore it)

Question 29

Secure attachment traits

Answer 29

Problem-focused coping

Positive internal working models of self and others

Comfort with closeness/ intimacy

Balance of interdependence and autonomy

Willingness to seek support

Providing sensitive/ responsive support to others

Question 30

Anxious attachment traits

Answer 30

Hyperactivation coping

Negative internal working model of self and ambivalent model of others

Need for approval/validation

Preoccupation with relationships/partners

Excessive support-seeking - seek support always, even when not needed

Compulsive/controlling style of providing support

Prone to negative attributions and affect, emotional intensity and increased drama in
interactions

Question 31

Avoidant attachment traits

Answer 31

Deactivation coping

Fragile internal working model of self

(portray self-confidence; experience self-doubt)

Negative internal working models of others

Discomfort with emotional closeness/intimacy

Disengaged when others are emotional, dependent, or attempt to change them

Prone to low commitment in relationships (reflective of the need to be self sufficient/not need anyone)

Excessive self-reliance/less support-seeking

Distant, withdrawn, or controlling style of
providing support

Question 32

Disorganization attachment traits

Answer 32

Haphazard/random use of hyperactivating and
deactivating strategies

Internal working model of self and others lack
coherence

Need for closeness coupled with fear of rejection

Question 33

Attachment system as an algorythm

Answer 33

Is there a threat? No - carry on, yes - turn on system

Seek proximity to external or internalized attachment figure

Are they available and attentive?

Yes - use security based strategies

No?

I proximity seeking a viable option?

No? Deactivating (avoidant) strategies

Yes - Hyperactivating strategies (anxious behaviour)