A Preliminary Investigation of the Relationship between Attachment and Emotion Perception

1. A Preliminary Investigation of the Relationship between Attachment and Emotion Perception Sarah L. Strout, Rosemarie I. Sokol, Nicholas S. Thompson, and James D. Laird Sponsored by funds from the Frances L. Hiatt School of Psychology, Clark University Abstract The way in which people perceive emotions appears to relate systematically to the type of attachments they form. This implies that the cues one receives about the stability of the environment relates to how one forms attachments and interprets emotional material. • Results • For secure attachment, t-test comparing personal and situational cuers was significant (p<.0005). Situational cuers more likely to be securely attached. • For anxious-avoidant attachment, t-test comparing personal and situational cuers was significant (p=.046). Personal cuers more likely to have an anxious avoidant attachment • Personal and situational cuers were not significantly different on anxious ambivilent attachment • . • Predictions • Adults with a secure attachments will be more likely to perceive emotions via situational cues since the stable environment provides them with reliable and predictable insight to their future actions. • Adults with insecure attachments are more likely to perceive emotions based on personal cues since the environment does not provide them with reliable and predictable information with which to foresee their future actions. • Method • 45 participants from Clark University completed two questionnaires. • 1st Questionnaire: (Facial Manipulation Procedure) categorizes participants into two groups based on response to facial manipulation • 2nd Questionnaire: Adult Attachment Questionnaire (Collins and Read, 1990): likert type scale that measures participants levels of three attachment styles: secure, anxious-avoidant, and anxious-ambivilent. • References • Chisholm, J. S. (1999). Death, hope, and sex: Steps to an evolutionary ecology of mind and morality. NY: Cambridge University Press. • Laird, J.D. (1974). Self-attribution of emotion: The effects of expressive behavior on the quality of emotional experience. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 33, 475-486. • Introduction • Previous research in social psychology shows that people differ in how much their feelings are based on cues from their bodies (e.g. Laird, 1974). • People who are more responsive to body cues are called personal cuers and feel an emotion via body changes. People who are less responsive to body cues are called situational cuers and feel emotion via context, norms, and other people. • An evolutionary explanation of this well-documented phenomenon is that these differences occur due to the operation of a cognitive module designed to enable a person to predict its own impending behavior. These differences are the result of the way in which the cognitive module is toggled based on the cues a person receives from the environment. • Chisholm’s (1999) insight as to the cues behind the varying attachment styles provides an example of what an evolutionary toggle might look like. He hypothesizes that children with secure attachments are those raised in a relatively secure environment, and can therefore trust environmental cues to be reliable sources of information. Children with insecure attachments, both ambivalent and avoidant, are those raised in relatively instable environments, and therefore have to gather information from non-environmental cues. l • Discussion • This research shows that attachment style is related to the manner in which people perceive emotion and supports the idea of an evolutionary toggle for cognitive modules that may be general across content areas. l