The present studies examined the differential behavioral strategies of affect regulation in which participants experienced a spooky haunted house attraction with live actors (Study 1) and viewed hair-raising scenes from the third installment of the Paranormal Activity film series (Study 2). Specifically, the current research addresses the way in which adult attachment styles predict behavioral strategies of affect regulation when participants are in non-threatening
situations, compared to when they are being chased by a chainsaw-wielding clown or startled by a glimpse of a sinister dark figure in a movie. Findings from Study 1 were inconsistent with predictions derived from attachment theory. Specifically, Study 1 revealed that adult attachment styles were unrelated to the expression of attachment-related behavior. Moreover, Study 2 addressed theoretical ambiguities in the attachment literature concerning the behavioral
dynamics of attachment-related avoidance in threatening and non-threatening situations. Results from Study 2 are consistent with the hypothesis that avoidant people enact deactivating
behavioral strategies when faced with a threat. Specifically, the current research suggests that avoidant people engage in attachment behaviors to the same extent as non-avoidant people when there are no perceived threats. Moreover, when a threat presented itself, avoidant people were not only less inclined to engage in attachment behavior compared to secure people, they also showed less attachment behavior than they did in the non-threatening condition. That is, rather than behaving similarly in both conditions, avoidant people appear to have engaged in
deactivating strategies that may have suppressed the initiation of attachment behavior towards their partner when threatened. As a whole, these studies contribute to the understanding of attachment-related processes with respect to how and when attachment styles are manifested in threatening contexts.
39 Implications for Attachment Theory
The present studies have several implications for attachment theory and research.
Attachment researchers have generally adopted at least three distinct approaches with regards to how attachment behavior is organized in threatening and non-threatening conditions. The findings from the present studies help to resolve theoretical ambiguities and bring clarity to how people might differ in their behavior across these contexts. In particular, the study results
indicated that people who are higher on the avoidance dimension do indeed diverge in their expression of attachment behavior when threatened compared to when they are not threatened. Specifically, avoidant people generally engaged in as much attachment behavior as secure people in non-threatening situations. However, when a threat became salient, avoidant people not only withheld from engaging in additional attachment behavior, they also showed less attachment behavior than when no threat was present. This suggests that working models related to
avoidance may be most relevant in threatening situations than in non-threatening contexts. That is, avoidant people may perceive attachment figures as being generally available and responsive in “fair weather” non-threatening circumstances. However, should a threat arise, avoidant people’s working models of attachment are likely to cue expectations of unavailability or rejection from others in times of need. Thus, those who score high in avoidance may be exclusively motivated to pursue secondary behavioral strategies in threatening settings, but do not apply these strategies broadly across all situations.
Additionally, the present research lends some insight concerning the role of anxiety in the manifestation of attachment behavior. A significant main effect of attachment anxiety indicates that highly anxious people are more likely than secure people to display attachment behavior irrespective of whether they are in a threatening situation or not. Because attachment anxiety is
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theoretically linked to the subjective appraisal of a threat, one potential interpretation of this finding is that, whereas avoidance is pertinent to the expression of attachment behavior only in threatening contexts, attachment anxiety is linked with the constant monitoring and assessment of threats regardless of the condition. If we consider the linear combinations of the two
attachment dimensions with these results in mind, different combinations of the two dimensions hint at distinctive cognitive processes that underlie the organization of attachment behavior (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991). For example, those who are high in both avoidance and anxiety (“fearful-avoidant”) may generally believe that they are unworthy of love and support, and therefore, may preemptively withdraw from others in times of need rather than risk rejection. As the study results suggest, fearful-avoidant people may also be highly sensitive to potential threats and may skew or exaggerate their assessment of threats, resulting in the activation of the attachment system even in the objective absence of a threat. In contrast, those who are high in avoidance but low in anxiety (“dismissive-avoidant”) may engage in deactivation strategies not because they fear others will abandon them, but because they believe that there is little benefit in relying on others and prefer to be self-reliant and independent. Dismissive-avoidant people may be less receptive than fearful-avoidant people in terms of threat appraisal, such that they tend to dismiss or ignore threat-related cues that may activate the attachment system. Thus, the present findings also imply that dismissive-avoidant people may engage in less attachment behavior relative to fearful-avoidant people when there is a perceived threat.
Limitations and Future Directions
There were several limitations of the present research. For example, we recruited
participants who were aware that they would be entering a haunted house attraction or viewing a scary movie clip. Thus, the study designs are susceptible to selection bias, such that people who
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find the haunted house experience appealing may be less likely to construe the haunted house as a genuinely scary situation. This may limit the assumption that participants were truly frightened. Moreover, because the research was correlational in nature, there may be confounding variables that were unaccounted for in our studies. Thus, inferences with regards to causation are severely constrained.
Future research directions include further examination of the perceived accessibility of attachment figures in threatening and non-threatening contexts. Results from the current studies suggest that avoidant people may view attachment figures as being generally accessible in non- threatening situations, but that this perceived accessibility declines in threatening times. However, there still remains the question of how these discrepancies in perceived accessibility are integrated at the representational level. It may be that mental representations of attachment figures emerge from past attachment experiences during which an attachment figure was accessible when no threat was present, but unresponsive or rejecting in threatening situations. Another possibility is that there are multiple mental representations, such that negative mental representations arise and become more salient only in threatening contexts, but that positive, or even idealized, mental representations reign supreme in non-threatening contexts.
Furthermore, Bowlby (1973) referred to being alone as a natural clue to danger. Yet, for avoidant people, the fear of being alone may be more complex. Although people may generally seek out attachment figures in times of need, there exists a contradiction for avoidant people in which the fear of being alone and the apprehension of being sought out for support are at odds. Future studies may wish to assess the extent to which being alone in a compound situation intensifies a sense of alarm for avoidant people, and if feelings of distress are heightened or alleviated when others who may seek out support are present. In such contexts, bids for support
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may spur a more intense activation of the attachment system than if the avoidant person were alone or with non-support seeking companion.
In summary, the current research demonstrates the way in which attachment styles were associated with the organization of regulatory behavioral strategies. The results suggest that avoidant people cope with threatening situations by means of deactivating strategies. However, in non-threatening situations, avoidant people were just as likely as secure people to express attachment-related behavior. These findings help to provide valuable insight regarding individual differences in the operation and function of the attachment system.
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