Adult Attachment Theory and Affective Reactivity and Regulation.

Abstract

emphasizes the emotional nature of close bonds between two people. Bowlby's original theory, which focused on understanding the close, enduring bonds between infants and their caregivers, highlighted two ways in which emotion is implicated in attachment. First, when infants experience emotional distress, they seek proximity to their caregiver. Second, caregivers who are sensitive and responsive are able to help infants regulate their feelings of distress, enabling them to experience an emotional sense of well-being or "felt security" (Sroufe & Waters, 1997). Research on attachment in adult close relationships (e.g., romantic relationships), which are the focus of this chapter, also has highlighted the connection between attachment and emotion (e.g., Kazan & Shaver, 1987;Pietromonaco & Feldman Barrett, 2000). Like children, when adults become distressed in the face of a threat, they may seek out an attachment figure in an attempt to regain an emotional sense of felt security (Simpson & Rholes, 1994).

Attachment avoidance modulates neural response to masked facial emotion

“…A low responsivity of the somatosensory cortex to masked sad faces could imply a poor automatic elicitation of another individual's negative emotional state [Adolphs et al, 2000]. Individuals high on attachment avoidance are characterized by a deactivation of their attachment behavioral system which leads to a downregulation of interpersonally experienced emotions [Bartholomew and Horowitz, 1991;Pietromonaco et al, 2006]. A reduced automatic generation of somatosensory representations simulating other individuals' negative Coordinates of the maximal point of activation and the associated Z-values are shown.…”

“…General anxiety (i.e., trait anxiety) and state depressivity were also measured because these mood variables are known to be correlated with attachment avoidance and might be legitimately viewed as offering alternative explanations for our findings [Mikulincer and Shaver, 2003, for a review]. Because attachment avoidance has been found to be related to a low degree of emotionality [Mikulincer and Shaver, 2003;Pietromonaco et al, 2006], it was hypothesized that attachment avoidance should be negatively correlated with the automatic activation of brain systems underlying emotion perception from faces. Thus, it was expected that attachment avoidance is associated with a low neural response to facial expression signaling (a need for) interpersonal approach at an automatic processing level.…”

“…People high on this dimension are unwilling to rely on others and withdraw from close relationships, whereas individuals low on this dimension are relying on others as secure base and feel comfortable opening up to others. Individuals high on attachment avoidance seem to deactivate their attachment behavioral system which is associated with a downregulation of emotions and a low intensity of emotionality [Bartholomew and Horowitz, 1991;Mikulincer and Shaver, 2003;Pietromonaco et al, 2006].…”

An attachment-based intervention for parents of adolescents at risk: mechanisms of change

“…We reasoned that since Connect focuses on increasing parents' recognition of and sensitive responding to the attachment needs underlying their teens' problem behaviors, treatment should promote greater attachment security in the parent-teen relationship and, more specifically, decreases in attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety. Drawing on Bowlby's (1969Bowlby's ( , 1973Bowlby's ( , 1979 conceptualization of attachment as a biologically based regulatory system and an affect regulation strategy (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007;Pietromonaco, Barrett, & Powers, 2006), we further predicted that treatment should be associated with parents' reports of significant decreases in dysregulation of affect. We conceptualized reductions in attachment avoidance, attachment anxiety and affect dysregulation as mechanisms that account for treatment outcomes, testing the extent to which decreases in each were related to parents' reports of decreases in externalizing and internalizing symptoms.…”

Tie-Up Cycles in Long-Term Mating. Part I: Theory

“…Here, we rather focus attention on some specific theoretical approaches that can be taken as particularly representative of the sexual vs. emotional analytical tradeoff in mating and couple dynamics. In particular, we consider sexual strategy theory (see [14] for an introduction and discussion in historical perspective) and adult attachment theory (see [15] for an updated formulation) in the wider context of person-by-situation approaches [16] as representative of the sexual vs. emotional poles, respectively. It is interesting to remark that both theories can be conveniently framed into an evolutionary psychology perspective.…”