When self-protection overreaches: Relationship-specific threat activates domain-general avoidance motivation

Automatic coping mechanisms in committed relationships: Increased interpersonal trust as a response to stress

“…However, when comparing the relationship stress group (M =6.13, SD=3.37; n = 23) against both the break-up group and the control group, we replicated the effect of a stress-induced up-regulation of interpersonal trust, t(64)= 1.83, p b .05 (one-tailed). The additional results support the view that the upregulation of trust that was observed in these studies reflects relationship stabilization rather than attempts at finding a new partner, highlighting the important distinction between stress that is experienced within a relationship and threats to the existence of a relationship (see above; e.g., Cavallo et al, 2010;Murray et al, 2003Murray et al, , 2008Murray et al, , 2006). …”

“…For instance, doubt about a partner's regard that is due to unfaithful behavior surely constitutes a stressful experience in which it would be inappropriate to increase interpersonal trust. Actually, research has shown that when a partner's regard is seriously in doubt, self-protection goals (Murray, Bellavia, Rose, & Griffin, 2003;Murray, Holmes, & Collins, 2006) and avoidance motivation (Cavallo, Fitzsimons, & Holmes, 2010) are activated rather than relationship-focused coping strategies. 1 However, as long as the stress evoking situation is unrelated to the partner's commitment level (e.g., stress evoked by work-related longer periods of physical separation), increased interpersonal trust poses a useful relationshipfocused coping response to lower the threatening quality of the situation and to maintain relationship stability.…”

Revising Working Models Across Time: Relationship Situations That Enhance Attachment Security

“…Initially deliberate responses develop into habitual tendencies that become mediated through automated cognition (Wood & Neal, 2007). The responses people develop in Attachment security enhancement model 15 one context (e.g., their current relationship) may be applied to other contexts (e.g., their friendships, work relationships; Cavallo, Fitzsimons, & Holmes, 2010). Thus, interpersonal and personality tendencies emerge through patterned behavior with others (Kelley, 1983;Neyer & Lehnart, 2007).…”

“…Gradually and with repeated exposure to situations that trigger the need to protect oneself from dependence, such individuals should develop automatic tendencies to deploy the deactivation strategies that characterize chronic avoidant attachment (Cavallo et al, 2010).…”

Threat and Defense

“…Similarly, control threats heighten the denial of randomness and chance in participants' lives (Kay et al, 2008; Study 2), and health threats promote avoidance of medical risk information (Sweeny, Melnyk, Miller, & Shepperd, 2010). Evidence that such proximal reactions are avoidance-motivated comes from studies showing that relationship threats decrease response latencies when identifying avoidancerelated compared to approach-related words (Cavallo, Fitzsimons, & Holmes, 2010), and that subliminal death primes reduce gaze duration toward pictures of physical injury but not neutral pictures (Hirschberger, Ein-Dor, Caspi, Arzouan, & Zivotfsky, 2010). A related proximal defense strategy is the tendency to move death into the distant future.…”