Effects of attachment security, threat, and attachment figure primes on cognitive attentional task performance

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2011

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Sakman, Ezgi

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The attachment system is activated when a threat is perceived in the environment. Attachment style differences moderate the levels of this activation. Whereas anxiously attached people are more hypervigilant to attachment-related stress, avoidant people have an ability to suppress their attachment related thoughts under stressful conditions. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the subliminal presentation of threat and attachment figure primes interfere with the cognitive task performance of participants with different attachment styles. It was hypothesized that anxious participants would perform worse than secure and avoidant participants under both conditions of attachment-related threat and attachment figure primes. Avoidant participants were expected to perform poorly only when a threat prime is followed by an attachment figure prime. The securely attached participants were expected to perform better than the other attachment groups. University students (N = 225) filled out a questionnaire package including the measures of attachment figure names (WHOTO), attachment anxiety and avoidance (The Experiences in Close Relationships, ECR); and they were administered computerized Signal Detection and Stroop tasks representing cognitive attentional performance in the laboratory. The results showed that attachment avoidance was a significant predictor of decreased cognitive performance, and attachment anxiety makes people vulnerable to cognitive performance decline only under certain circumstances of attachment system activation. Attachment security was identified to make individuals immune to the effects of threat or attachment figure availability priming on cognitive performance. The findings were discussed considering previous work and implications for cultural differences.

Subject Keywords

Relationship addiction., Psychology M.S. thesis

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http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12613182/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/20616

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Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis

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Citation Formats

E. Sakman, “Effects of attachment security, threat, and attachment figure primes on cognitive attentional task performance,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2011.