Trust development as an expectancy-learning process: Testing contingency effects

Abstract

Trust in parental support and subsequent support seeking behavior, a hallmark of secure attachment, result from experiences with sensitive parents during distress. However, the underlying developmental mechanism remains unclear. We tested the hypothesis that trust is the result of an expectancy-learning process condtional upon contingency (the probability that caregiver support has a positive outcome). We developed a new paradigm in which a novel caregiver provides help to solve a problem. Contingency of the caregiver’s support was manipulated and participants’ trust in the caregiver and their help seeking behavior was measured in three independent samples. The hypothesis was supported suggesting that trust and support seeking result from an expectancy-learning process. These findings’ potential contribution to attachment theory is discussed.

Prospecting the attachment research field: a move to the level of engagement

“…Costello et al, 2019) may no longer be tenable. Rather, it becomes necessary to understand the specific components of intervention effectiveness, how these relate to mechanisms of behavior change in context, and how these mechanisms are related to mechanisms of attachment development (Bosmans et al, 2019;Mohamed et al, 2019;Schuengel & Tharner, 2020). These questions can only be answered in any coherent way by collective and coordinated efforts of researchers collecting data across settings and countries.…”

A Learning Theory Approach to Attachment Theory: Exploring Clinical Applications

“…We suggest that the LTA is not just promising as a theory that could inform new research on attachment development (e.g., Bosmans, Sanchez-Lopez, et al, 2019 ; Bosmans, Waters, et al, 2019 ; Verhees et al, 2021 ), but that the theory could also be informative for clinical practice. Obviously, much work still needs to be done into clinically relevant translations.…”

“…Older children have developed more explicit insecure schemas (Rijkeboer & de Boo, 2010 ), with increasingly stronger information processing biases (e.g., Dudeney et al, 2015 ). Because such biases reduce the likelihood that children will notice and interpret parents as being more supportive than expected (Bosmans, Sanchez-Lopez, et al, 2019 ; Bosmans, Waters, et al, 2019 ), merely exposing children to corrective information during care-related interactions with parents will not result in corrective learning experiences (Baert et al, 2011 ). One way to overcome this, is to make the corrective experience emotionally more salient.…”

Attachment Representations in Children with and without Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

“…First, a recent model describing the development of attachment from a learning-theory perspective proposes that secure attachment is learned by reductions in cortisol after caregivers' support, which is a reinforcer in the safety conditioning of the child, thereby leading to increased trust in the caregiver [63]. More specifically, the contingency of the caregiver's support (i.e., the likelihood that the caregiver provides support when in stress) is related to the degree of support seeking, showing that expectancy-learning processes play a role in the development of secure attachment [64]. In children with ADHD, these learning processes may be disturbed.…”