The Psychodynamics of Social Judgments An Attachment Theory Perspective

The Psychodynamics of Social Judgments: An Attachment Theory Perspective Phillip R Shaver University of California, Davis, USA Mario Mikulincer Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel Running Head: Attachment and Social Judgment Address correspondence to: Phillip R Shaver Department of Psychology University of California, Davis One Shields Avenue Davis, CA 95616-8686 E-mail: prshaver@ucdavis.edu Mario Mikulincer Department of Psychology Bar-Ilan University Ramat Gan, 52900 Israel E-mail: mikulm@mail.biu.ac.il Author note: Preparation of this chapter was facilitated by a grant from the Fetzer Institute Attachment and social judgment In recent years, attachment theory (Bowlby, 1982/1969, 1973, 1980), designed originally to characterize infant-parent emotional bonding, has been applied, first, to the study of adolescent and adult romantic relationships, and then to the study of broader social phenomena In the present chapter we review and integrate this large and still growing body of work to demonstrate the usefulness and validity of attachment theory for explaining individual variations in a wide array of social judgments, including appraisals of self and others, appraisals of person-environment transactions, and cognitive reactions to new information, out-groups, others’ needs, and transient affective states We also provide an updated integrative model of the dynamics of the attachment system (Shaver & Mikulincer, in press), which explains the effects of two major individual-difference dimensions, attachment-related anxiety and avoidance, on social judgments and identifies the implicit and explicit mechanisms that mediate these effects Basic Concepts in Attachment Theory and Research In his classic trilogy, Bowlby (1982/1969, 1973, 1980) developed a theoretical framework for explaining the nature of the affective ties we form with significant others and the relevance of these ties for socioemotional functioning This theoretical framework can now be viewed as a part of evolutionary psychology (see Brewer and Haselton & Buss, this volume) Bowlby (1982/1969) argued that human infants are born with a repertoire of behaviors (attachment behaviors) aimed at attaining or maintaining proximity to supportive others (attachment figures) as a means of protecting themselves from physical and psychological threats These proximity-seeking behaviors are organized around a psychoevolutionary adaptation (attachment behavioral system), which emerged over the course of evolution to increase the likelihood of survival and reproduction on the part of members of a species born with immature capacities for locomotion, feeding, and defense Although the attachment system is most critical during the early years of life, Bowlby (1988) assumed that it is active over the entire life span and is manifested in thoughts and behaviors related to proximity seeking in times of need Attachment and social judgment Beyond describing the universal aspects of the attachment system, Bowlby (1973) delineated possible individual differences in its functioning In his view, these individual differences are derived from the reactions of significant others to attachment-system activation and from the internalization of these reactions in the form of attachment working models of self and others On the one hand, interactions with significant others who are available and responsive to one’s needs facilitate the optimal functioning of the attachment system and promote the formation of a sense of attachment security This sense consists of positive expectations about others’ availability in threatening situations, positive views of the self as competent and valued, a sense of optimism in dealing with threats, and increased confidence in support seeking as a primary distress-regulation strategy The sense of attachment security also facilitates engagement in autonomy-promoting activities (e.g., exploration) and ability to make risky decisions while feeling confident that support is available if needed (Bowlby, 1988) On the other hand, interactions with significant others who are unresponsive to one’s attachment needs foster insecurity regarding others’ goodwill and doubts about the effectiveness of proximity seeking During these painful interactions, distress is not properly managed, insecure attachment working models are formed, and strategies of affect regulation other than support seeking are developed Attachment theorists (e.g., Cassidy & Kobak, 1988; Main, 1990) have delineated two major insecure strategies: hyperactivation and deactivation of the attachment system Hyperactivation is characterized by recurrent attempts to minimize distance from attachment figures and elicit support by clinging and controlling responses Deactivation consists of attempts to maximize distance from attachment figures while adopting a self-reliant stance (Bowlby, 1988; Cassidy & Kobak, 1988) While testing these theoretical ideas in studies of adults, most researchers have focused on “styles” of attachment – systematic patterns of expectations, emotions, and behavior in close relationships that are viewed as the residue of particular kinds of attachment histories (Fraley & Shaver, 2000) These residues are thought to inhere in internal working Attachment and social judgment models of self and others Initially, individual-difference studies of attachment styles in adulthood were based on Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, and Wall’s (1978) tripartite typology of attachment styles in infancy – secure, anxious, and avoidant – and on Hazan and Shaver’s (1987) conceptualization of adult parallels to these styles in the marital/romantic domain Subsequent studies (e.g., Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991; Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998; Fraley & Waller, 1998) revealed that adult attachment styles are best conceptualized, not as distinct types, but as regions in a continuous two-dimensional space The dimensions defining this space, attachment-related anxiety and attachment-related avoidance, can be measured with reliable and valid self-report scales (Brennan et al., 1998), which are associated with a wide variety of cognitions and behaviors in close relationships (see Feeney, 1999, for a review) and feelings during daily social interactions (e.g., Pietromonaco & Feldman Barrett, 1997; Tidwell, Reis, & Shaver, 1996) In this two-dimensional space, what was formerly called the “secure style” is a region in which both anxiety and avoidance are low This region is defined by a positive history of interactions with significant others, a sense of attachment security, and comfort with closeness and interdependence What was called the “anxious style” refers to a region in which anxiety is high and avoidance is low Persons high in attachment anxiety are characterized by insecurity concerning others’ goodwill and reliable support, a strong need for closeness, fear of being rejected, and reliance on hyperactivating affective strategies What was called the “avoidant style” refers to a region in which avoidance is high This region is defined by insecurity concerning others’ goodwill, compulsive self-reliance, and the adoption of deactivating affect-regulation strategies In Ainsworth et al.’s (1978) early twodimensional analysis, based on a discriminant analysis that included all of these authors’ continuous coding scales of infant behavior in a laboratory “strange situation,” avoidant infants occupied mainly the region where avoidance was high and anxiety was low In adult attachment research, Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991) drew a distinction between Attachment and social judgment “dismissing avoidants” (people who are high on avoidance and low on anxiety) and “fearful avoidants” (those high on both avoidance and anxiety) Although attachment styles may initially be formed during early interactions with primary caregivers, Bowlby (1988) contended that meaningful interactions with significant others throughout life can update a person’s attachment working models (and associated behavioral orientation) Moreover, although attachment style is often conceptualized as a global orientation toward close relationships, there are theoretical and empirical reasons for believing that working models of attachment are part of a hierarchical cognitive network that includes a complex, heterogeneous array of episodic, relationship-specific, and generalized attachment representations (Collins & Read, 1994) These representations can be viewed as existing at different levels along an implicit-to-explicit continuum of information processing, as discussed by Brewer and others in this volume People possess multiple attachment schemas, and both congruent and incongruent attachment-related cognitions may coexist in the cognitive network with a global attachment style (Baldwin et al., 1996) In fact, research has shown that (a) people can hold relationship-specific attachment orientations organized around experiences with a specific partner (e.g., LaGuardia, Ryan, Couchman, & Deci, 2000; Pierce & Lydon, 2001), and (b) actual or imagined encounters with supportive or nonsupportive others can contextually activate congruent attachment orientations (e.g., Mikulincer & Shaver, 2001; Mikulincer et al., in press), even if these orientations not fit with the global attachment style An Integrative Model of the Dynamics of the Attachment System Based on an extensive review of adult attachment studies, Shaver and Mikulincer (in press) proposed a model of the activation and dynamics of the attachment system This model integrates recent findings with the earlier theoretical proposals of Bowlby (1982/1969, 1973), Ainsworth (1991), and Cassidy and Kobak (1988), and is a conceptual extension and refinement of previous control-system representations of the attachment system presented by Shaver, Hazan, and Bradshaw (1988) and Fraley and Shaver (2000) Attachment and social judgment The model (see Figure 1) includes three major components One component concerns the monitoring and appraisal of threatening events and is responsible for activation of the attachment system The second component involves the monitoring and appraisal of the availability and responsiveness of attachment figures who might provide support and relief, satisfy attachment needs, build the individual’s own inner resources, and broaden his or her thought-action repertoire This component is responsible for variations in the sense of attachment security; it distinguishes between securely and insecurely attached persons, whether anxious or avoidant The third component concerns monitoring and appraisal of the viability of proximity seeking as a means of coping with attachment insecurity and distress This component is responsible for variations in the use of hyperactivating or deactivating strategies of affect regulation and distinguishes between anxious and avoidant people The model also includes excitatory and inhibitory neural circuits (shown as arrows on the left side of the diagram) that result from the recurrent use of hyperactivating or deactivating strategies, which in turn affect the monitoring of threatening events and of attachment figures’ availability Following Bowlby’s (1982/1969) reasoning, Shaver and Mikulincer (in press) assume that the monitoring of unfolding events results in activation of the attachment system when a potential or actual threat is perceived This activation can be viewed as part of what Chartrand and Jefferis (this volume) call automatic goal pursuit, manifested in efforts to seek and/or maintain proximity to attachment figures Although this component of the model represents the normative operation of the attachment system, which occurs regardless of individual differences in attachment history and orientation, it is still affected by excitatory circuits resulting from the hyperactivating strategies of anxious persons and inhibitory circuits related to avoidant individuals’ deactivating strategies Once the attachment system is activated, an affirmative answer to the question about attachment figures’ availability results in a strong sense of attachment security and in what Shaver and Mikulincer (in press), following the lead of Fredrickson (2001), call a “broaden Attachment and social judgment and build” cycle of attachment security This cycle reflects optimal functioning of the attachment system and is characterized by distress alleviation and bolstered personal adjustment as well as facilitation of other behavioral systems, such as exploration and caregiving, which broaden a person’s perspectives and capacities Moreover, this cycle encourages a person to openly acknowledge future threats and to rely comfortably on proximity seeking as a primary coping strategy Perceived unavailability of an attachment figure results in attachment insecurity, which compounds the distress initiated by the appraisal of a threat This state of insecurity forces a decision about the viability of proximity seeking as a protective strategy When proximity seeking is appraised as a viable option – because of attachment history, temperamental factors, or contextual cues – people adopt hyperactivating strategies, which include intense approach to attachment figures and continued reliance on others as a source of comfort Hyperactivation of the attachment system involves excitatory neural circuits that increase vigilance to threat-related cues and reduce the threshold for detecting cues of attachment figures’ unavailability – the two kinds of cues that activate the attachment system (Bowlby, 1973) As a result, minimal threat-related cues are easily detected, the attachment system is chronically activated, pain related to the unavailability of attachment figures is exacerbated, and doubts about one’s ability to achieve relief and attain a sense of security are heightened These excitatory circuits account for the psychological correlates of attachment anxiety Appraising proximity seeking as not viable results in the adoption of deactivating strategies, manifested in distancing from cues that activate the attachment system – cues related to threats and attachment figures – and making attempts to handle distress alone These strategies involve inhibitory circuits that lead to the dismissal of threat- and attachment-related cues, the suppression of threat- and attachment-related thoughts and emotions, and the repression of threat- and attachment-related memories These inhibitory circuits are further reinforced by the adoption of a self-reliant attitude that decreases Attachment and social judgment dependence on others and acknowledgment of personal faults or weaknesses These inhibitory circuits account for the psychological manifestations of attachment avoidance According to Shaver and Mikulincer (in press), the three major components of the model have both content and process aspects – a distinction analyzed by von Hippel, Vargas, and Sekaquaptewa (this volume) All components and circuits of the model can operate either consciously or unconsciously (see Brewer, this volume) Moreover, these components and circuits can operate either in parallel or in opposite ways at conscious and unconscious levels This explains why some avoidant individuals experience conscious deactivation of threatrelated cues while also exhibiting unconscious, including physiological, signs of distress (e.g., Dozier & Kobak, 1992; Mikulincer, 1998b; Mikulincer, Florian, & Tolmacz, 1990) It also explains why avoidant individuals exhibit heightened accessibility of attachment-related worries under cognitively demanding situations that prevent more controlled inhibition of these worries (Mikulincer, Birnbaum, Woddis, & Nachmias, 2000; see Lieberman, this volume, for a neuropsychological analysis of the effects of cognitive load) The Dynamics of the Attachment System and Social Judgments In our view, the formation of individual differences in attachment-system dynamics can be viewed as the prototypical precursor of variations in social judgments These differences should play a role in theoretical models designed to explain accuracies and inaccuracies in social judgments (e.g., Funder and Kruglanski, Erb, Chun, & Pierro, this volume) According to Bowlby (1973), attachment-style differences are already present in the first year of life, in infants’ interactions with their primary caregiver, and they form a foundation for the development of specific judgments about others (beliefs about others’ availability), the self (beliefs about self-worth and self-efficacy), transactions with the environment (e.g., beliefs about the positivity of interactions with others, beliefs about the reversibility of threats), and ways of dealing with these transactions (e.g., beliefs about the efficacy of support seeking) as well as regulating cognitions in non-attachment areas (e.g., exploration) These mental products can be generalized across recurrent interactions with a Attachment and social judgment relationship partner Moreover, they can be generalized across relationships via top-down schematic processing of new partners and relationships, and then become the building blocks of a person’s global social judgments Shaver and Mikulincer’s (in press) model provides a guide for delineating attachmentrelated variations in social judgments The module that monitors attachment-figure availability and creates a sense of attachment security is related to positive or negative working models of others, which can bias judgments of other people Moreover, the sense of attachment security can regulate cognitions related to the exploration of new information and the provision of care for others who are in need The module that monitors the viability of proximity seeking and determines the adoption of deactivating or hyperactivating strategies activates self-reliant or other-reliant attitudes, and can therefore bias judgments about selfworth In addition, since these strategies are defined by the regulation of threat cues (exaggeration vs dismissal), proximity to others (maximization vs minimization), and affective states (perpetuation of threat-related affect vs distancing oneself from this affect), they can bias judgments of threatening events and self-other proximity as well as cognitive reactions to affective states In the following sections, we review research findings concerning specific links between dynamics of the attachment system and social judgments Attachment-Figure Availability and Social Judgments The perceived availability of attachment figures has direct implications for the appraisal of others An affirmative answer to the question about attachment-figure availability activates positive models of others, which may spread to positive appraisals, expectations, and explanations of others’ traits and behaviors In contrast, a negative answer to this question activates negative models of others, which in turn may negatively bias judgments of other people This reasoning implies that insecure attachment, either anxious or avoidant, which results from the perceived unavailability of attachment figures, should be associated with more negative judgments of others Attachment and social judgment 10 The perceived availability of attachment figures can also regulate attitudes related to exploration and caregiving, two of the other behavioral systems discussed by Bowlby (1982/1969) He claimed that the unavailability of attachment figures inhibits the activation of other behavioral systems, because a person without the protection and support of an attachment figure is likely to be so focused on attachment needs and feelings of distress that he or she lacks the attention and resources necessary to explore the environment and attend empathically to others’ needs This reasoning implies that attachment insecurity should reduce or prevent exploration of new information in making social judgments, favor the formation of rigid, stereotypic judgments, and inhibit the development of a prosocial orientation and a caring attitude toward needy others Appraisal of others’ traits and behaviors Numerous studies have provided strong support for the hypothesis that attachment-related anxiety and avoidance are associated with negative appraisals of other people Individuals who score high on the dimensions of attachment-related anxiety and/or avoidance have been found to hold a more negative view of human nature (Collins & Read, 1990), use more negative traits to describe relationship partners (e.g., Feeney & Noller, 1991; Levy, Blatt, & Shaver, 1998), perceive these partners as less supportive (e.g., Davis, Morris, & Kraus, 1998; Ognibene & Collins, 1998), be less satisfied with the support received from others (e.g., Collins & Read, 1990; Larose & Boivin, 1997), feel less trust toward partners (e.g., Collins & Read, 1990; Mikulincer, 1998a; Simpson, 1990), and believe that partners not truly know them (Brennan & Bosson, 1998) Both anxiety and attachment avoidance are also associated with negative expectations concerning partner behaviors (e.g., Baldwin et al., 1993; Baldwin et al., 1996; Mikulincer & Arad, 1999) For example, Baldwin et al (1993) examined the cognitive accessibility of expectations concerning partner’s behaviors in a lexical-decision task and found that for both anxious and avoidant persons, negative partner behaviors (e.g., partner being hurtful) were more accessible than they were among secure persons These negative expectations have also Attachment and social judgment 26 That is, avoidant people tend to hold distressing material out of awareness and memory right from the start Along these lines, Miller (2001) found that attachment avoidance is associated with lack of attention toward a confederate’s remarks during a long conversation as well as subsequent poor recall of these remarks Summary In this section we reviewed evidence that both explicit and implicit processes mediate the links between dynamics of the attachment system and social judgments Figure provides a schematic summary of the possible mediational processes There is already strong evidence for these processes at levels that can be assessed using self-report measures, behavioral observations, and information-processing experiments Future research linking these processes to their neural underpinnings should clarify their nature still further (see Lieberman and Zárate & Stoever, this volume) Concluding Remarks Our review of recent research demonstrates that attachment theory is a useful and generative framework for explaining individual variations in social judgments Although attachment theory was not originally constructed to explain social judgments, our reading of Bowlby suggests that he intended the theory to be quite broad in its implications We believe we have begun to map some of the important effects of the dynamics of the attachment system on social judgments As shown in this chapter, individual differences in self-report measures of attachment anxiety and avoidance, as well as contextual activation of attachment-related representations, coherently relate to a broad array of social judgments, including appraisals of self and others, appraisals of person-environment transactions, outgroup hostility, cognitive closure, stereotypic thinking, empathic attitudes towards others’ needs, value priorities, and mood-cognition congruence In our view, one of the most interesting features of our recent work is that similar effects can be obtained either as a function of chronic individual-difference dimensions, such as anxiety and avoidance, or as a function of contextual manipulations of attachment threats Attachment and social judgment 27 and attachment security This parallelism not only supports the theoretical notion that individual differences in attachment style arise developmentally out of important transactions between the attachment behavioral system and its local social environment It also 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(1995) Love relationships: Attachment style and the investment model Journal of Mental Health Counseling, 17, 199-209 Rom, E., & Mikulincer, M (2001) Attachment theory and group processes: The association between attachment style and group-related representations, goals, memories, and functioning Unpublished manuscript, Bar-Ilan University Shaver, P R., & Hazan, C (1993) Adult romantic attachment: Theory and evidence In D Perlman & W Jones (eds.), Advances in personal relationships (Vol 4, pp 29-70) London: Jessica Kingsley Shaver, P R., Hazan, C., & Bradshaw, D (1988) Love as attachment: The integration of three behavioral systems In R J Sternberg & M Barnes (Eds.), The psychology of love (pp 68-99) New Haven, CT: Yale University Press Portions reprinted in several textbooks Attachment and social judgment 36 Shaver, P R., & Mikulincer, M (in press) Attachment-Related Psychodynamics Attachment and Human Development Simpson, J A (1990) Influence of attachment styles on romantic relationships Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 871-980 Simpson, J A., Rholes, W S., & Nelligan, J S (1992) Support seeking and support giving within couples in an anxiety-provoking situation: The role of attachment styles Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 434-446 Tidwell , M C O., Reis, H T., & Shaver, P R (1996) Attachment, attractiveness, and social interaction: A diary study Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 729745 Van Lange, P A M., De Bruin, E M N., Otten, W., & Joireman, J A (1997) Development of prosocial, individualistic, and competitive orientations: Theory and preliminary evidence Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 733-746 Westmaas, J L., & Cohen Silver, R (2001) The role of attachment in responses to victims of life crises Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 425-438 Whisman, M A., & Allan, L E (1996) Attachment and social cognition theories of romantic relationships: Convergent or complementary 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Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 13, 263-278 Whitaker, D J., Beach, S R H., Etherton, J., Wakefield, R., & Anderson, P L (1999) Attachment and expectations about future relationships: Moderation by accessibility Personal Relationships, 6, 41-56 Attachment and social judgment 37 Figure Legends Figure Shaver and Mikulincer’s (in press) integrative model of the activation and dynamics of the attachment system Figure Flowchart illustrating the contribution of attachment-system dynamics to social judgments Figure Flowchart illustrating the explicit and implicit processes that mediate the effects of attachment-related strategies on social judgments Attachment and social judgment 38 _ _ Signs of threat? NO Continue with habitual activities + YES Activation of the attachment system Seeking proximity to external or internalized attachment figure + Is attachment figure available, attentive responsive, etc? Attachment security (Distress alleviation) YES Engagement in non-attachment activities (e.g., exploration caregiving) NO Attachment insecurity (compounding of distress) Is proximity-seeking a viable option? NO YES Hyperactivating strategies Hypervigilance of threatand attachment-related cues Deactivating strategies Distancing of threat- and attachmentrelated cues Attachment and social judgment 39 Is the attachment figure available, attentive responsive, etc? NO Attachment Insecurity ▪ Negative judgments of others ▪ Rejection of new information ▪ Rigid, stereotypic judgments ▪ Lack of concern for others’ needs ▪ Lack of prosocial orientation Is proximity-seeking a viable option? YES Hyperactivating Strategies ▪ Negative self-appraisals ▪ Self-devaluation ▪ Exaggerated appraisal of threats or transactions ▪ False consensus biases ▪ Negative mood-congruent cognitions and judgments No Deactivating Strategies ▪ Dismissal of personal faults ▪ Self-inflation ▪ Dismissal of threats, relevance, and challenges of transactions ▪ False distinctiveness biases ▪ Lack of effects of positive and negative mood on judgments Attachment and social judgment 40 Is proximity-seeking a viable option? YES Hyperactivating Strategies ▪ Love/support goals ▪ Emotionfocus coping ▪ Mental rumination ▪ Attempts to elicit support ▪ Heightened activation of threat cognitions ▪ Autonomous spread of activation ▪ Lack of cognitive differentiation ▪ Incoherent state of mind ▪ Deep-level encoding of threat cognitions ▪ Negative judgments of others ▪ Rejection of new information ▪ Low prosocial orientation ▪ Negative self-appraisals ▪ Self-devaluation ▪ Exaggerated appraisal of threats of transactions ▪ False Consensus biases ▪ Negative mood-congruent cognitions and judgments Explicit processes Implicit processes NO Deactivating Strategies ▪ Distance/selfreliance goals ▪ Distancing coping ▪ Thought suppression ▪ Attempts to disclose a strong self ▪ Lowered activation of threat cognitions ▪ Constricted spread of activation ▪ Lack of cognitive integration ▪ Segregated and dissociated systems ▪ Shallow encoding of threat cognitions ▪ Negative judgments of others ▪ Rejection of new information ▪ Low prosocial orientation ▪ Dismissal of personal faults ▪ Self-inflation ▪ Dismissal of threats, relevance, and challenges of transactions ▪ False distinctiveness biases ▪ Lack of effects of positive and negative mood on judgments ... from the reactions of significant others to attachment- system activation and from the internalization of these reactions in the form of attachment working models of self and others On the one hand,... part of avoidant individuals’ dismissal of the importance and personal relevance of person-environment transactions, their dismissal of the threatening and challenging aspects of these transactions,... appraisals of self and others On the one hand, the search for closeness, acceptance, and understanding can explain anxious people’s false consensus bias and overestimation of selfother similarity On the