Attachment insecurity and strategies for regulation: when emotion triggers attention

• Autor(a) principal: Gonzalez, C.
• Data de Publicação: 2012
• Outros Autores: Soares, I., Esteves, F. G.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://ciencia.iscte-iul.pt/public/pub/id/3004; http://hdl.handle.net/10071/10085
• topic: Insecure attachment; Hyperactivation; Deactivation; Attentional bias; Emotion

Attachment-related strategies are thought to be critical for regulation and processing of emotional information. This study examined biases in selectiveattention to emotional stimuli as a function of insecure attachment. Participants searched for a single target image preceded by to-be-ignored distractersdepicting emotional images varying in valence and arousal. Results revealed that, in general, negative distracters affected accuracy levels, and that the anx-ious attached participants showed a clear interference of the emotional distracters. In contrast, the avoidant group evinced a higher control on such interfer-ence. In addition, arousal ratings to distracter images indicated superior emotional activation only for anxious attached participants. Consistent with theevolutionary-based attachment theory threat-related stimuli prompted priority attentional responses. Present findings are in line with evidence showing thedeployment of distinct strategies in insecurely attached individuals for the regulation of attention to emotional information.