Research article summary:

Activation of the attachment system in adulthood: threat-related primes increase the accessibility of mental representations of attachment figures.

Abstract Extract:
Three studies explored the effects of subliminal threat on the activation of representations of attachment figures. This accessibility was measured in a lexical decision task and a Stroop task following threat- or neutral-word primes, and was compared ... (Full abstract text below)

Published 2002Oct in Journal: J Pers Soc Psychol (Language : eng)

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1. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2002 Oct;83(4):881-95

Activation of the attachment system in adulthood: threat-related primes increase the accessibility of mental representations of attachment figures.

Mikulincer M, Gillath O, Shaver PR

Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel. mikulm@mail.biu.ac.il

Three studies explored the effects of subliminal threat on the activation of representations of attachment figures. This accessibility was measured in a lexical decision task and a Stroop task following threat- or neutral-word primes, and was compared with the accessibility of representations of other close persons, known but not close persons, and unknown persons. Participants also reported on their attachment style. Threat primes led to increased accessibility of representations of attachment figures. This effect was specific to attachment figures and was replicated across tasks and experiments. Attachment anxiety heightened accessibility of representations of attachment figures even in neutral contexts, whereas attachment avoidance inhibited this activation when the threat prime was the word separation. These effects were not, explained by trait anxiety. The discussion focuses on the dynamics of attachment-system activation in adulthood.

PMID : 12374442 [PubMed - Indexed for MEDLINE]

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Full Author Information

First Name	LastName	Initials
Mario	Mikulincer	M
Omri	Gillath	O
Phillip R	Shaver	PR

Affiliation: Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel. mikulm@mail.biu.ac.il

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