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Introduction
Attachment anxiety refers to the fear of one being abandoned by people ha has a close
relationship with. These may be family members or lovers. Research has shown that individuals
with high attachment anxiety have high alertness to threats, and this gives them more time than
those with low anxiety, to analyse the situation and react. Among experiments used to test this
phenomena, is the emotional stroop test. This test refers to the time taken for the brain to react to
a given task.
The research hypothesis
This research hypothesized that attachment anxiety would be related to greater immediate
interference for the threatening word, whereas low levels of attachment anxiety would be
associated with delayed interference (to the subsequent neutral word). Considering the
modulating role of the top-down attentional system, this research further predicted that the
association between attachment anxiety and immediate emotional Stroop interference would be
stronger among those who demonstrated relatively weaker top-down attentional control. This
was based on the consistent finding that attachment anxiety is associated with a hyperactivating
response to threat, in the current study the temporal features of this threat response were
delineated and contrasted with the threat response of those with low levels of attachment anxiety.
Participants
Undergraduate students with high and low scores on an emotional maltreatment
screening questionnairre were sent email invitations to participate in the current study. The
screener was embedded in a larger set of questionnaires completed in exchange for credit in an
introductory psychology course. This selection strategy was designed to maximize variability in
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emotional abuse history, to determine whether emotional Stroop effects associated with
attachment anxiety might be better explained by recalled early, chronic exposure to negative
interpersonal experiences. Greater exposure to stimuli has been found to affect emotional Stroop
response latencies ( Dalgleish, 1995), and in particular, early childhood exposure to interpersonal
threat has been postulated as a potential determinant of individual differences in threat response (
Frewen et al., 2008). Childhood emotional abuse has been associated with anxious and insecure
attachment and related to increased attentional bias toward socially threatening cues in childhood
and later in adulthood ( Gibb, Schofield, & Coles, 2009). In total, 137 undergraduates (65 low
and 72 high emotional abuse; 111 females and 26 males) participated with an average age of
18.36 ( SD = 1.8). Data from 12 participants was excluded because of missing data points due to
equipment malfunction ( n = 7) or insufficient questionnaire data ( n = 5). These participants did
not differ significantly from the larger sample on any variables assessed.
Procedure
This study received ethics approval from the University of Guelph Research Ethics
Board. Participants completed the study individually in a private room in exchange for a course
credit. After providing informed consent, participants trained to at least 80% accuracy on 20
Stroop practice trials before completing the emotional Stroop task. They subsequently completed
a traditional color-word Stroop task and a series of computer-administered questionnaires. As
standard procedure, during debriefing all participants were provided with a complimentary
information sheet on local and web-based mental health resources.
Results
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Attachment anxiety scores ranged from 1.22 to 6.44 (of a possible range of 1 to 7) with a
mean of 3.77 ( SD = 1.19). Scores were normally distributed. The current average significantly
exceeded the average score of 3.45 reported by Brennan and colleagues (1998; n = 1086; SD =
1.11), t(1209) = 3.03; p < .01, an expected difference attributable to strategic recruitment. Levels
of emotional abuse history, reassessed concurrently with attachment anxiety, ranged from 5 to
24, with an average of 10.29 ( SD = 5.08). The distribution was positively skewed, z = 3.33, p <
.001, but not bimodal, likely because of use of a second measure of emotional abuse on
reassessment in addition to some expected regression to the mean. As expected, attachment
anxiety and emotional abuse history were positively correlated, r(125) = .44, p < .01. Neither
variable was significantly associated with gender.
Conclusion
The temporal delineation of emotional Stroop interference in the current study, together
with an independent assessment of top-down attentional control, provided a more detailed
depiction of the attachment anxiety-related threat response. Rather than supporting the
โthresholdโ explanation for anxiety-related emotional Stroop interference current data was
consistent with the explanation that anxiety influences the speed at which moderate perceived
threat disrupts ongoing processes under top-down attentional control.
As predicted, attachment anxiety was associated with greater immediate interference to
cues of interpersonal threat, consistent with the notion that individuals high in attachment anxiety
adopt a more generalized hypervigilant approach to threat rather than focusing specifically on
rejection and abandonment. In contrast, low attachment anxiety was associated with increased
response latencies to the two neutral words that followed. The slower response to threat among
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relatively low-anxious participants in the current study resembled a โdouble-take,โ orienting to
the moderately threatening content only subsequent to its color-labeling. This research largely
achieved its objective and was successful. The random selection of participants, though, could
compromise the accuracy of the research. A more scientific sample should have been used.
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References
Dalgleish, T. ( 1995). Performance on the emotional Stroop task in groups of anxious, expert
and control subjects: A comparison of computer and card presentation formats.Cognition
and Emotion, 9, 341โ 362.
Frewen, P. A., Dozois, D. J. A., Joanisse, M. F., & Neufeld, R. W. J. ( 2008). Selective attention
to threat versus reward: Meta-analysis and neural-network modeling of the dot-probe
task.Clinical Psychology Review, 28, 307โ 337.
