Emotions Under the Skin

2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 161-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catarina Silva ◽  
Ana Cláudia Ferreira ◽  
Isabel Soares ◽  
Francisco Esteves

Abstract. The present study examined physiological reactivity to emotional stimuli as a function of attachment style. Skin conductance responses (SCRs) and heart rate (HR) changes were simultaneously recorded while participants engaged in a visual attentional task. The task included positive, neutral, and negative emotional pictures, and required the identification of a target (neutral picture rotated 90° to the left or right), among a stream of pictures in which an emotional distracter (positive or negative) was presented. Participants additionally rated each of the emotional distracters for valence and arousal. Behavioral results on the attentional task showed that positive pictures facilitated overall target detection for all participants, compared to negative and neutral pictures, and that anxiously attached participants had significantly lower accuracy scores, relative to the other groups. Affective ratings indicated that positive pictures were rated as being more pleasant than negative ones, although no differences were found in HR changes to picture valence. In contrast, negative pictures were evaluated as being highly arousing. Consistent with this, negative pictures elicited larger SCRs in both insecure anxious and avoidant groups, especially for the anxious while the secure group showed SCRs unaffected by stimuli’s arousal. Present results show that individuals with different attachment styles reveal distinct patterns of attentional bias, appraisal, and physiological reactivity toward emotionally arousing stimuli. These findings further highlight the regulatory function of the attachment system.

Author(s):  
Ina Grau ◽  
Jörg Doll

Abstract. Employing one correlational and two experimental studies, this paper examines the influence of attachment styles (secure, anxious, avoidant) on a person’s experience of equity in intimate relationships. While one experimental study employed a priming technique to stimulate the different attachment styles, the other involved vignettes describing fictitious characters with typical attachment styles. As the specific hypotheses about the single equity components have been developed on the basis of the attachment theory, the equity ratio itself and the four equity components (own outcome, own input, partner’s outcome, partner’s input) are analyzed as dependent variables. While partners with a secure attachment style tend to describe their relationship as equitable (i.e., they give and take extensively), partners who feel anxious about their relationship generally see themselves as being in an inequitable, disadvantaged position (i.e., they receive little from their partner). The hypothesis that avoidant partners would feel advantaged as they were less committed was only supported by the correlational study. Against expectations, the results of both experiments indicate that avoidant partners generally see themselves (or see avoidant vignettes) as being treated equitably, but that there is less emotional exchange than is the case with secure partners. Avoidant partners give and take less than secure ones.


2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 34 ◽  
Author(s):  
LO Ying Tuan ◽  
Huam Hon Tat ◽  
Ahmad Sharifuddin Shamsuddin ◽  
Amran Md Rasli ◽  
Ahmad Jusoh

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of consumer’s attachment styles as a moderator in the impact of brand personality on its brand attachment. This research investigated the preferred brand personality of anxious and avoidant attachment consumer, their likelihood to be attached to that brand and how they respond to any changes in brand personality. A total of 300 students were surveyed. Their attachment style and their response towards sincere and exciting personality and its brand attachment were assessed. Empirical study shows that anxious attachment style consumer preferred sincere brand personality, tends to be attached with it and did not respond to any changes in brand personality.  Avoidant attachment style people on the other hand have a stronger relationship with the exciting brand personality, are not likely to be attached to it and will respond to changes in brand personality. This study implies that marketers should get to know their targeted market’s attachment style prior coming out with the suitable brand personality.


2010 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 124-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Solange Mardaga ◽  
Michel Hansenne

Several studies showed that personality modulates emotional responsiveness, though most of them used subjective ratings as the measure of emotion. The present study extends personality-emotion relationship findings to psychophysiological methods, more precisely to skin conductance responses (SCRs). SCRs were recorded in 54 normal subjects following the presentation of neutral and emotional pictures. Results showed that half-recovery time was modulated by harm avoidance (HA) as a function of emotional valence: Low-HA subjects showed longer half-recovery time following the presentation of pleasant pictures relative to neutral ones, whereas high-HA subjects showed no extended half-recovery time. These results support the hypothesis that personality modulates some aspects of somatic emotional reactivity, and together with previous results, they suggest that this phenomenon is highly dependent upon the characteristics of the emotional material.


2000 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Muris ◽  
Birgit Mayer ◽  
Cor Meesters

The purpose of the present study was to explore the relationship between self-reported attachment styles, on the one hand, and levels of anxiety symptoms and depression, on the other hand, in a sample of 12-year-old children (N = 91). Children completed a simplified version of Hazan and Shaver's (1987) single-item measure of attachment style and self-report measures of anxiety and depression. Results showed that 20.9% of the children classified themselves as insecure (i.e., avoidantly or ambivalently) attached. Furthermore, it was found that insecurely attached children had elevated levels of anxiety symptoms and depression compared to securely attached children.


2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 453-471 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anja J. Laan ◽  
Marcel A. L. M. van Assen ◽  
Ad J. J. M. Vingerhoets

We carried out 2 studies to evaluate the relationship between attachment style and crying in adults. Data were collected from 2 independent large samples, measuring as 2 different operationalizations crying in general and in response to music. The results in both studies showed a consistent pattern. As anticipated, the group with a dismissive attachment style cried less than the other groups, and the preoccupied attachment style group cried more intensely than the secure group. The preoccupied and fearful attachment style groups reported the most negative emotions while crying, whereas the secure group reported more crying over positive emotions. These results show that attachment style is a determinant of adult crying behavior.


Author(s):  
Wina Lova Riza

 This study aims to investigate the association between perceptions of childhood experiences with parents, attachment styles (avoidant, anxious/ambivalent, and security) in romantic relationships, and relationship satisfaction (satisfaction in relationships) with a sample of lecturers and employees of UBP in Karawang who have married or having a romantic relationship. The method used in this study is a regression method with the aim to find out the extent of the influence of one independent variable with the dependent variable. In other words, researchers intend to see the effect of variable attachment styles with relationship satisfaction. The research instrument used was to use two questionnaires with a Likert scale, namely the Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised (ECR-R) questionnaire and the relationship assessment scale. From the results of the study using multivariate correlation analysis with the SPSS 24 program, a significant value of 0.009 was obtained with a probability (p) of 0,000; because p <0.05, it indicates a significant relationship with a positive direction between attachment styles and relationship satisfaction. In addition, the following are the results of grouping the results of respondents' attachment style. From a total of 88 respondents, 50 of them (57%) have a fearful attachment style, 17 people (19%) have a dismissing attachment style, 11 people (13%) have a preocupied attachment style, and 10 (11%) have type of secure attachment style.   Keywords: Attachment Styles, Relationship Satisfication, Romantic Relationship  Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menyelidiki asosiasi antara persepsi pengalaman masa kanak-kanak dengan orang tua, attachment styles (avoidant, anxious/ambivalent, dan security) dalam hubungan romantis, dan relationship satisfacation (kepuasaan dalam hubungan) dengan sampel dosen dan karyawan UBP Karawang yang telah menikah atau sedang menjalani hubungan romantis. Metode yang digunakan dalam penelitian ini adalah metode regresi dengan tujuan untuk mengetahui sejauh mana pengaruh satu variabel indenpenden dengan variabel dependen. Dengan kata lain, peneliti bermaksud untuk melihat pengaruh variabel attachment styles dengan relationship satisfaction. Instrumen penelitian yang digunakan adalah dengan menggunakan dua kuesioner dengan skala likert, yaitu kuesioner Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised (ECR-R) dan relationship assessment scale. Dari hasil penelitian dengan menggunakan analsis korelasi multivariat dengan program SPSS 24 diperoleh nilai signifikan sebesar 0,009 dengan probabilitas (p) 0,000; karena p < 0,05, maka menunjukkan adanya hubungan yang signifikan dengan arah positif antara attachment styles dengan relationship satisfaction. Sebagai tambahan, berikut dipaparkan hasil pengelompokkan hasil attachment style responden. Dari total 88 preponden, 50 orang diantaranya (57%) memiliki tipe fearful attachment style, 17 orang (19%) memiliki tipe dismissing attachment style, 11 orang (13%) memiliki tipe preocupied attachment style, dan 10 orang (11%) memiliki tipe secure attachment style.   Kata Kunci: Attachment Styles, Relationship Satisfication, Romantic Relationship


2020 ◽  
pp. 026540752098267
Author(s):  
Lynne Marie Stöven ◽  
Philipp Yorck Herzberg

Today, Social Network Sites (SNSs) offer a wide variety of functions for initiating and maintaining personal relationships (i.e. sharing private information, messaging, commenting, liking or viewing others profiles). According to the uses and gratifications approach, individuals chose how they use media in order to satisfy given needs. Regarding personal relationships, attachment style is associated with distinct needs and behaviors. Thus, SNS use should differ with distinct attachment styles. This review aims to answer the question, how attachment style is related to SNS usage pattern and provide a comprehensive overview, by identifying and integrating associations with different facets of SNS use. Results were based on a systematic review of 17 studies. Measures of SNS use could be attributed to the facets of three categories: (1) Quantitative use (i.e. time spent on SNSs, number of friends/followers), (2) qualitative use (social use, parasocial use, self-presentation, monitoring) and (3) SNS motive (anxiety reduction, avoiding closeness). Especially insecure attached individuals strive to satisfy attachment needs through SNS use. While anxious individuals aim to reduce anxiety i.e. by seeking feedback via online social interaction, avoidant users can feel connected browsing others’ profiles without facing the threat of closeness. Insecure attachment was associated with negative outcomes related to SNS use, such as addictive behaviors. Limitations and implications of the findings are discussed.


2013 ◽  
Vol 25 (10) ◽  
pp. 1597-1610 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik J. Kaestner ◽  
John T. Wixted ◽  
Sara C. Mednick

Sleep affects declarative memory for emotional stimuli differently than it affects declarative memory for nonemotional stimuli. However, the interaction between specific sleep characteristics and emotional memory is not well understood. Recent studies on how sleep affects emotional memory have focused on rapid eye movement sleep (REM) but have not addressed non-REM sleep, particularly sleep spindles. This is despite the fact that sleep spindles are implicated in declarative memory as well as neural models of memory consolidation (e.g., hippocampal neural replay). Additionally, many studies examine a limited range of emotional stimuli and fail to disentangle differences in memory performance because of variance in valence and arousal. Here, we experimentally increase non-REM sleep features, sleep spindle density, and SWS, with pharmacological interventions using zolpidem (Ambien) and sodium oxybate (Xyrem) during daytime naps. We use a full spread of emotional stimuli to test all levels of valence and arousal. We find that increasing sleep spindle density increases memory discrimination (da) for highly arousing and negative stimuli without altering measures of bias (ca). These results indicate a broader role for sleep in the processing of emotional stimuli with differing effects based on arousal and valence, and they raise the possibility that sleep spindles causally facilitate emotional memory consolidation. These findings are discussed in terms of the known use of hypnotics in individuals with emotional mood disorders.


2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 218-233 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikki Boniwell ◽  
Leanne Etheridge ◽  
Ruth Bagshaw ◽  
Joanne Sullivan ◽  
Andrew Watt

Purpose – Attachment Theory can be regarded as central to the concept of relational security. There is a paucity of research examining the coherence of this construct for ward-based staff. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Five female nurses from the acute admission and assessment ward of a UK medium secure unit acted as participants. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, and inductive thematic analysis was applied. Findings – Six themes; “staff-service user relationships”, “staff diversities”, “service user backgrounds”, “variability in service users’ presentations”, “service users with personality disorder are problematic” and “nurses do not use attachment” emerged from the data. The nurses used heuristic models of attachment-related behaviour and they lacked knowledge of constructs associated with Attachment Theory. Research limitations/implications – Acute admissions may not be representative of all treatment contexts. Traditional models of attachment style may have only limited relevance in forensic services. Practical implications – Limited knowledge and confidence in the nurses regarding how Attachment Theory might apply to service users is interesting because it may limit the extent to which care, treatment and risk management might be informed by an understanding of service user representations of therapeutic relationships. Training and educational interventions for nurses that enhance understanding of personality development and attachment styles are warranted. Originality/value – The importance of nurses for achieving relational security is emphasised and the adequacy of their training is questioned.


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