The Beneficial Effect Of Security Priming On Cognitive Processing Of Insecure Attachment

Attachment is an important aspect of human adaptation and survival,it improves the possibility of individual survival,constructs the characteristics of individual’s lifelong adaptation,and helps people to develop a better life.Differences in attachment styles may influence the cognitive processing strategy toward certain types of emotional information in the external environment.Indeed,people’s psychological stability and development depend on whether there is a security base in the psychological structure.Under stressful situations,the attachment system is activated,attachment security can help individuals to evaluate the stressful situations positively,thereby they can maintain cognitive balanced;while insecure attachment may reduce the individual’s psychological elasticity in response to stress,which may lead to cognitive processing deficit such as hyper-approach or hyper-avoid when dealing with emotional information.Considering attachment security has obvious advantages than attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance in cognitive processing.This may lead researchers to develop the methods that can promote adult’s attachment security.In recent years,researchers have investigated the plasticity of insecure attachment by using the method of security priming,and found that security priming produce great beneficial effects on emotional cognition,self-concept and behavior.Therefore,security priming provides a feasible perspective to investigate the cognitive plasticity of insecure attachment.However,Security priming studies have many limitations now.First,previous studies are lack of specificity,and ignore the role of consciousness in the effect of security priming.Second,previous studies pay more attention to the short-term effects of security priming while ignoring the long-term effects of it.Accordingly,exploring the beneficial effect of security priming on cognitive processing in insecure attachment is a very crucially issue in attachment research.This research aimed to fill this research gap by testing three questions.First,is there any difference in the effect between the supraliminal and subliminal security priming?Second,is the repeated security priming effect of insecure attachment still effective on multiple cognitive tasks?Third,does the repeated security priming effect of insecure attachment have better persistence?Study 1 included two experiments(e.g.,Experiments 1 and 2)that was used to answer the first question.Experiment 1 examined whether supraliminal security priming could improve the attention processing deficit within insecure attachment.We found that supraliminal security priming significantly elevated early selective attention(as reflected by N100 amplitude and P200 latency)in anxiously and avoidantly attached women,but we only observed enhanced later controlled attention(as reflected by P300 amplitude)to crying infant faces in anxiously attached women.Although supraliminal security priming produced a boosting effect on the attention processing deficit in insecure attachment,it should be noted that this boosting effect of supraliminal security priming may not be as valid for avoidant attachment.However,subliminal security priming is thought to be less subject to experimental demand characteristics and perhaps to attenuate the defensive reaction of avoidantly attached individuals.To better account for the characteristics of avoidant attachment,in Experiment 2,we examined the boosting effect of subliminal security priming that might contribute to the attention processing deficit in insecure attachment to infant emotions,especially for avoidant attachment.We found subliminal security priming elicited greater P100 and P200 amplitudes to crying infant faces than subliminal neutral priming in avoidantly and anxiously attached women,but we only observed elevated P300 amplitudes to crying infant faces in avoidantly attached women.Therefore,we may conclude that although both the supraliminal and the subliminal security priming produced a boosting effect on attention function in insecure attachment,the effectiveness and applicability of each type of priming in the boosting effect are different.The supraliminal security priming is a more effective and applicable priming method for anxious attachment,while subliminal security priming is a more effective and applicable priming method for avoidant attachment.As the number of exposures to the prime(repetitions)increased,the effects of the prime were stronger and longer lasting.By including five experiments(e.g.,Experiments 3-7),Study 2 conducted a 30 days security priming to explore the effect of long-term security priming on the cognitive processing deficit in insecure attachment.To systematically investigate the effect of security priming,Study 2 examined the beneficial effects of repeated security priming on cognitive processing in insecure attachment from state and trait attachment,infant facial perception,attention,working memory,and cognitive control.In Experiment 3,we examined the improvement effect of repeated security priming on participant’s state and trait attachment.We found repeated security priming significantly enhanced the state attachment security,reduced the state anxiety,state avoidance,and trait avoidance.Using neurophysiological technique,Experiment 4 examined the repeated security priming effect on the perception of infant emotions.We found that repeated security priming enhanced the activity of reward-related(right putamen)and maternal-related brain regions(right DLPFC and right supramarginal gyrus),as well as the endogenous oxytocin level to infant faces.In addition,high attachment anxiety and avoidance participants were benefited more from the benefical effects of repeated security priming we observed above.In Experiment 5,by using spatial cueing paradigm,we sought to explore the repeated security priming effect on the attention processing to attachment-related pictures.We found that repeated security priming attenuated attentional engagement to attachment-related pictures.In addition,high attachment anxiety participants were benefited more from the beneficial effect of repeated security priming we observed above.Experiment 6 further explored the repeated security priming effect on the working memory of emotional pictures.We found that repeated security priming elevated the accuracy rate to negative pictures and negative attachment-related pictures.In addition,we found that high attachment anxiety participants were benefited more from the beneficial effect of repeated security priming.Experiment 7 examined the repeated security priming effect on cognitive control of attachment-related emotional words.We found that repeated security priming reduced the attentional arousal to attachment-related words,so we concluded that repeated security priming improved the cognitive control ability.In addition,high attachment avoidance participants were benefited more from the beneficial effect of repeated security priming we observed above.From the results of Study 2,we may conclude that not only in state and trait attachment,but also in multi attachment-related function(perception of infant emotion,attention engagement,working memory,and cognitive control),repeated security priming helps a lot.More importantly,the effect of repeated security priming was moderated by trait attachment anxiety and avoidance,which may indicate that repeated security priming improve the cognitive function of insecure attachment to some extent.Study 3 included four experiments(e.g.,Experiments 8-11)that mainly serves to test whether the repeated priming might cause these beneficial effects to persist for 30 days after the priming sessions ended.In order to ensure the coherence and comparability,Study 3 was still carried out from four aspects:state and trait attachment(Experiment 8),attention(Experiment 9),working memory(Experiment 10)and cognitive control(Experiment 11).In addition,it is worth noting that we not only compared the data between post-tracking and post-intervention,but also between post-tracking measure and pre-intervention.This analysis strategy provides further evidence for the reliability and stability of our results.Findings of the comparison between post-tracking and pre-intervention suggested that,compared with the pre-intervention,the improvement effect of repeated security priming was still significant in post-tracking.However,findings of the comparison between post-tracking and post-intervention indicated that there is no significant difference in state attachment,trait attachment,attentional engagement,working memory,and cognitive control between post-intervention and post-tracking.Importantly,in the phase of post-tracking,the beneficial effects of repeated security priming on these cognitive abilities was still effective in insecure attachment.From the results of Study 3,we could conclude that the beneficial effects of repeated priming were persistent even 30 days after the priming sessions ended.In summary,we can conclude as follows:First,although both the supraliminal and the subliminal security priming produced a boosting effect on attention function in insecure attachment,the supraliminal security priming is a more effective for anxious attachment,while subliminal security priming is a more effective for avoidant attachment.Second,repeated security priming enhanced endogenous oxytocin,as well as the activity of maternal related and reward-related regions when viewing infant faces in insecure attachment.Third,repeated security priming produced significant beneficial effects on attachment status and multi attachment-related function.In addition,to some extent the repeated security priming also improved cognitive function of insecure attachment.Fourth,Although a slight decline was observed in cognitive control,the beneficial effects of repeated priming on multi cognitive function were persistent even 30 days after the priming sessions ended.