Attachment styles and repressive defensiveness: The accessibility and architecture of affective memories.

Abstract

One hundred and twenty Israeli students were classified into secure, avoidant, and anxious-ambivalent attachment groups. They completed scales that tap the construct of repressive defensiveness and recalled early personal experiences of anger, anxiety, sadness, and happiness. Secure people reported moderate defensiveness and low anxiety and had easy access to negative memories without being overwhelmed by the spreading of the dominant emotional tone to nondominant emotions. Anxious-ambivalent people were unable to repress negative affects, reported high anxiety, had easy access to negative memories, and could not inhibit emotional spreading. Avoidant people reported high levels of defensiveness and anxiety and showed low accessibility to negative memories. The discussion emphasizes the parallel between a person's interaction with the social world and the makeup of his or her inner world.

Cites (7)

1. Emotion And Adaptation
   Lazarus, Richard S · 1991
2. Attachment styles among young adults: A test of a four-category model.
   Bartholomew, Kim, Horowitz, Leonard M. · 1991 · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
3. Adult attachment, working models, and relationship quality in dating couples.
   Collins, Nancy L., Read, Stephen J. · 1990 · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
4. A personality scale of manifest anxiety
   Taylor, Janet A. · 1953 · The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology
5. Low-anxious, high-anxious, and repressive coping styles: Psychometric patterns and behavioral and physiological responses to stress.
   Weinberger, Daniel A., Schwartz, Gary E., Davidson, Richard J. · 1979 · Journal of Abnormal Psychology
6. Attachment styles, coping strategies, and posttraumatic psychological distress: The impact of the Gulf War in Israel.
   Mario Mikulincer, Víctor Florián, Aron Weller · 1993 · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
7. Repression of emotionally tagged memories: The architecture of less complex emotions
   Hansen, Ranald D., Hansen, Christine H. · 1988 · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Show all 7 references

Cited by (43)

1. The construction of autobiographical memories in the self-memory system
   Conway, Martin A., Pleydell-Pearce, Christopher W. · 2000 · Psychological Review
2. Attachment Theory and Affect Regulation: The Dynamics, Development, and Cognitive Consequences of Attachment-Related Strategies
   Mikulincer, Mario, Shaver, Phillip R., Pereg, Dana · 2003 · Motivation and Emotion
3. Adult romantic attachment: Theoretical developments, emerging controversies, and unanswered questions
   Fraley, R. Chris, Shaver, Phillip R. · 2000 · Review of General Psychology
4. The Attachment Behavioral System In Adulthood: Activation, Psychodynamics, And Interpersonal Processes
   Mikulincer, Mario, Shaver, Phillip R. · 2003 · Advances in Experimental Social Psychology
5. Attachment-related psychodynamics
   Shaver, Phillip R., Mikulincer, Mario · 2002 · Attachment & Human Development

See all 500