Attentional biases for negative and positive attachment words associated with individual differences in adult attachment and defensiveness: Effects of stimulus content, intensity, and valence

Attachment theory predicts that attentional biases for attachment-relevant information are associated with individual differences in adult attachment, but little research in this area has been conducted. Additionally, the constructs of adult attachment and repressive coping are hypothesized to be related but not redundant in predicting attentional biases. The visual-probe methodology was utilized to assess attentional biases for attachment words associated with self-reported adult attachment dimensions of anxiety and avoidance, repressive coping, and defensiveness. The two attachment dimensions were crossed to create four attachment groups labeled secure, preoccupied, dismissing, and fearful. The design included positive and negative attachment words and positive and negative physical words to assess the effects of content and valence. Each of these four types of word stimuli were further divided into four levels of stimulus intensity. Positive and negative attachment and physical words were each paired with a neutral word matched for length and frequency of use in the English language. Each word pair was presented on a computer monitor for 500 milliseconds and was then replaced with a small arrow pointing left or right. Participants were instructed to press a button immediately upon discriminating the direction of the arrow probe. Reaction times were used to create attentional bias index scores, which represented the dependent variable. Results indicated that attachment groups differentiated attentional biases for attachment-positive words but not attachment-negative words. Fearful and preoccupied groups were attentionally avoidant, and the dismissing group showed attentional vigilance, of mild attachment-positive words. The secure group showed no attentional bias. The analysis with repressive coping indicated that defensiveness alone differentiated attentional biases for attachment-negative words. The high-defensive group was attentionally avoidant, and the low-defensive group vigilant, of attachment-negative words. The results are discussed in terms of their relevance to attachment theory and the visual-probe literature.