Abstract:

Traditional attachment theory suggests that an individual’s attachment-related psychological and behavioral patterns are relatively stable. However, from information processes or life-span development perspective, attachment patterns have trait-state duality, i.e. attachment patterns are both relatively stable and context-sensitive. An individual’s attachment pattern in a particular context is the consequence of his or her trait attachment and contextual feature interactions. The interaction patterns between trait attachment and attachment priming effects provide a window to understand the duality of attachment and their relationships. And the two-stages model of attachment activation offers a framework for integrating and understanding these patterns. Future studies should optimize the manipulation check of attachment priming, meanwhile, take the interaction between attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety in consideration. More attention should be paid to the individual differences in the high attachment anxiety group which may clarify the patterns of interaction between trait and state attachment. Moreover, the time course of how attachment coping strategies impact the effects of attachment priming should be concerned, which could reveal the mechanism of the interactions between trait and state attachment.

Key words: attachment, attachment priming, trait attachment, state attachment