Attachment-Related Biases in Adolescents' Memory

Attachment theorists propose that individuals' internal working models influence their social information processing. This study explored links between attachment representations and social information processing by examining adolescents' (n = 189; Mage = 16.5 years) attachment-related mem...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Child development 2014-11, Vol.85 (6), p.2185-2201
Main Authors: Dykas, Matthew J., Woodhouse, Susan S., Jones, Jason D., Cassidy, Jude
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adjectives
Adolescent
Adolescents
Adults
Anxiety
Attachment behavior
Biological and medical sciences
Child development
Child psychology
Childhood
Cognition & reasoning
Developmental psychology
Emotional attachments
Emotional security
Emotions - physiology
EMPIRICAL ARTICLES
Evidence
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Male
Memory
Memory, Episodic
Mental Recall - physiology
Mind
Object Attachment
Parent-Child Relations
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Social Perception
Stimuli
Strategic planning
Teenagers
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Summary:Attachment theorists propose that individuals' internal working models influence their social information processing. This study explored links between attachment representations and social information processing by examining adolescents' (n = 189; Mage = 16.5 years) attachment-related memory biases. Participants completed laboratory tasks assessing memory for (a) emotionally salient childhood events, (b) adjectives describing their parents, and (c) generalized parent-related characteristics not specific to their own parents. As expected, dismissing attachment (assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview) was linked across tasks to a deactivating strategy in which memory for emotional childhood events and attachment-relevant stimuli was reduced. In contrast, evidence that preoccupied attachment was linked to a hyperactivating strategy in which memory was heightened emerged only in relation to emotional childhood events.
ISSN:0009-3920
1467-8624
DOI:10.1111/cdev.12268