Remembering the past and imagining the future: attachment effects on production of episodic details in close relationships

Cao, Xiaoyuan; Madore, Kevin P.; Wang, Dahua; Schacter, Daniel L.

doi:10.1080/09658211.2018.1434800

Cited by 14 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 64 publications

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“…Expectancies about social interactions are partly situation-specific 46 ; however, there is a component of them that is influenced by individuals' temperament and stable working models (schemas) of self and others 47 . The LODESTARS was designed to tap the stable component, by probing participants’ expectancies for interactions with peers (with whom the participant is motivated to interact) in a generic social event context.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brain structure correlates of expected social threat and reward

Crawford

Muhlert

MacDonald

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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Prospection (mentally simulating future events) generates emotionally-charged mental images that guide social decision-making. Positive and negative social expectancies—imagining new social interactions to be rewarding versus threatening—are core components of social approach and avoidance motivation, respectively. Interindividual differences in such positive and negative future-related cognitions may be underpinned by distinct neuroanatomical substrates. Here, we asked 100 healthy adults to vividly imagine themselves in a novel self-relevant event that was ambiguous with regards to possible social acceptance or rejection. During this task we measured participants’ expectancies for social reward (anticipated feelings of social connection) or threat (anticipated feelings of rejection). On a separate day they underwent structural MRI; voxel-based morphometry was used to explore the relation between social reward and threat expectancies and regional grey matter volumes (rGMV). Increased rGMV in key default-network regions involved in prospection, socio-emotional cognition, and subjective valuation, including ventromedial prefrontal cortex, correlated with both higher social reward and lower social threat expectancies. In contrast, social threat expectancies uniquely correlated with rGMV of regions involved in social attention (posterior superior temporal sulcus, pSTS) and interoception (somatosensory cortex). These findings provide novel insight into the neurobiology of future-oriented cognitive-affective processes critical to adaptive social functioning.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brain structure correlates of expected social threat and reward

Crawford

Muhlert

MacDonald

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Episodic memory and simulation are flexible, can be reconstructed, and have diverse adaptive functions, such as benefiting planning, problem-solving, and various goal-directing behaviors (Schacter, 2012). Previous research has indicated that one way for IWMs to connect past experience and future adaptation is through episodic memory (Cao et al, 2018). These characteristics are very consistent with Bowlby’s notion about IWMs, as Bowlby (1988) emphasized the “working” aspect of mental attachment models to reflect the idea that these representations are not static and can be manipulated to find optimal solutions to specific problems.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Autobiographical memory and simulation task. We selected six picture cues (size, 964 Â 734 pixels) from a prior study (Cao, Madore, Wang, & Schacter, 2018), each depicting a scenario with high familiarity and imaginability for young college students. Pictures were presented on a computer screen with the relevant instructions.…”

Section: Qrimentioning

confidence: 99%

Remembering the past and imagining the future: Partners’ responsiveness in specific events relates to relationship satisfaction and subjective well-being

Cao

Wang

2019

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships

Self Cite

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Attachment theory indicates that romantic partners’ availability and responsiveness provide individuals with a sense of security and the repeated experience of which could have enduring effects on individuals’ subjective well-being and relationship outcomes. We proposed that retrieving episodic memory and episodic simulation related to secure-base support could also help individuals obtain information about partners’ responsiveness, which in turn would promote long-term subjective well-being and relationship satisfaction. To provide the evidence of this notion, the current study investigated the relationship between partner’s responsiveness in episodic memory/simulation of secure-base support and relationship satisfaction as well as subjective well-being. We recruited 136 young adults ( M age = 21.89, SD = 2.57) who were currently involved in a romantic relationship for at least 6 months. Participants completed measures of relationship satisfaction and subjective well-being; then, they provided specific episodic memory and simulations related to secure-base support as well as rated partners’ responsiveness in each event. Results indicated that partners’ responsiveness in both episodic memory and simulations was significantly positively related to participants’ relationship satisfaction and subjective well-being. These results provide novel implications for the function of episodic memory and episodic simulation of secure-base support in the attachment system.

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“…1 Expectancies about social interactions are partly situation-specific; 74 however, there is a component of them that is influenced by individuals' temperament and stable working models (schemas) of self and others. 75,76 The LODESTARS was designed to tap the stable component, by probing participants' expectancies for interactions with peers (with whom the participant is motivated to interact) in a generic social event context. The scenario described in the LODESTARS is emotionally ambiguous, and thus in line with existing measures in which participants imagine themselves in an emotionally ambiguous (future) scenario.…”

Section: Measuring Dispositional Social Expectancies: the Lodestarsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual differences in social reward and threat expectancies linked to grey matter volumes in key regions of the social brain

Crawford¹,

Muhlert²,

MacDonald³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Prospection (mentally simulating future events) generates emotionally charged mental images that guide social decision-making. Positive and negative social expectancies -imagining new social interactions to be rewarding vs. threatening -are core components of social approach and avoidance motivation, respectively. Stable individual differences in such positive and negative future-related cognitions may be underpinned by distinct neuroanatomical substrates. Here, we asked 100 healthy adults to vividly imagine themselves in a novel selfrelevant social scenario that was ambiguous with regards to possible social acceptance or rejection. During this task we measured their expectancies for social reward (e.g. anticipated feelings of social connection) or threat (e.g. anticipated feelings of rejection). On a separate day they underwent structural MRI; voxel-based morphometry (VBM) was used to explore the relation between their social reward and threat expectancies and regional grey matter volumes (rGMV). Increased rGMV in key regions involved in prospection, subjective valuation and emotion regulation (including ventromedial prefrontal cortex), correlated with both higher social reward and lower social threat expectancies. In contrast, social threat expectancies were uniquely linked with rGMV of regions involved in social attention (posterior superior temporal sulcus) and interoception (somatosensory cortex). These findings provide novel insight into the neurobiology of future-oriented cognitiveaffective processes critical to adaptive social functioning.

show abstract

Remembering the past and imagining the future: attachment effects on production of episodic details in close relationships

Cited by 14 publications

References 64 publications

Brain structure correlates of expected social threat and reward

Brain structure correlates of expected social threat and reward

Remembering the past and imagining the future: Partners’ responsiveness in specific events relates to relationship satisfaction and subjective well-being

Individual differences in social reward and threat expectancies linked to grey matter volumes in key regions of the social brain

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