On Priming Security and Insecurity

Visuospatial perspective shifting and relational self-association in dispositional shame and guilt

Although dispositional shame and guilt have been distinguished by perceptions of the self and behavioral responses, the underlying information processing patterns remain unclear. We hypothesized that an ability to contemplate alternatives to perceptions of the current environment, i.e., flexibility in perspective shifting, may be essential to both dispositions. Dispositional shame may additionally relate to negative relational knowledge that involves a self-representation of being rejected. One hundred and six community participants rated the two dispositions, and had their flexibility in perspective shifting and internalized self-association with rejection assessed. Regression analysis indicated that a lower cost of perspective shifting was observed with dispositional guilt and shame. Yet, unlike a direct association with perspective shifting for dispositional guilt, it was an interaction between perspective shifting and negative relational knowledge that accounted for dispositional shame. The association of dispositional shame with perspective shifting was contingent upon the tendency to pair the self with rejection.

A Sense of Security

Adults can be made to experience state attachment security (e.g., feel calm, cared for, and trusting) when they recall experiences, in which others were accepting and responsive. In two experiments, we tested whether receiving affectionate touch in the context of a close relationship naturally promotes state attachment security. As hypothesized, participants who imagined receiving touch had greater accessibility of secure words on a memory task (Experiment 1) and participants who physically received touch from their romantic partners self-reported greater state security (Experiment 2) than participants who did not receive touch. Neither the relationship context (romantic partner or close friend) nor the attribution for the touch moderated touch’s effect on state security. However, consistent with predictions, touch promoted security more for individuals low in avoidant attachment than highly avoidant individuals. By promoting state security, touch may facilitate positive relational behaviors and cognitions to improve and protect adult relationships.

Of snakes and succor: learning secure attachment associations with novel faces via negative stimulus pairings

Integrating ideas from Mikulincer and Shaver's (2003) process model of attachment and Nelson and Panksepp's (1998) neurobiological theory of an integrated social emotion system, we predicted novel attachment-related learning effects. In two experiments, we tested for a unique form of conditioning based on the social regulation of emotion. Consistent with this theoretical integration, the results indicated that people develop more positive and less negative associations with faces of people who display genuine smiles if those faces have been implicitly paired with a distressing stimulus (e.g., a striking snake). These findings could have broad implications and should be of interest to researchers who study attachment, social and affective neuroscience, emotion, learning and memory, attitudes, and interpersonal relationships.