Effect of attachment-relevant episodic simulation on adult attachment security

doi:10.3724/SP.J.1042.2024.00014

Abstract

Abstract:

Considering the positive effect of secure attachment on relationships and well-being, the plasticity of attachment is an important research topic in the field of adult attachment. To explore the plasticity of attachment, we first need to understand how individuals attain attachment security. The control-system model of attachment posits that the way for individuals to attain security is to access the internal representation of attachment. Previous research only concentrated on accessing the secure-base script, which is a kind of internal representation including a series of procedural knowledge that summarizes the basic features of receiving support from an attachment figure, to attain attachment security. However, the function of attachment-relevant episodic simulation is overlooked during this process. Attachment-relevant episodic simulation refers to mentally simulating a series of future episodes regarding successfully support seeking and receiving support during distressful situations. Inspired by the research on episodic simulation, our previous research proposed and confirmed that attachment-relevant episodic simulation could also act as a way to attain security in the control-system model of attachment. However several research questions remain unsolved. What’s the uniqueness of the attachment-relevant episodic simulation when acting as a way to attain attachment security? What’s the mechanism of this effect? And how to conduct attachment intervention inspired by this new route. This research proposal will solve these questions through three studies.

First, Study 1 will investigate the effect of attachment-relevant episodic simulation on adult attachment security and its uniqueness. We will compare the attachment-relevant episodic simulation with other ways of attaining security in their frequency of use, effect, and to what extent affected by attachment orientations during daily life. Besides, study 1 also wants to explore in which situation individuals will depend more on attachment-relevant episodic simulation to attain attachment security.

Second, Study 2 will investigate the mechanism of this effect from the content and the cognitive process of attachment-relevant episodic simulation. Four experiments will be conducted to compare the effect of attachment-relevant episodic simulation with attachment-relevant semantic thinking, attachment-irrelevant episodic simulation, positive emotion induction, and attachment-relevant episodic simulation of unrelated situations. Another two experiments will use the episodic specificity induction and episodic coherence induction to manipulate the specificity of episodic retrieval and the coherence of episodic construction of attachment-relevant episodic simulation, then find their effect on attachment security.

Third, based on the results of Study 2, Study 3 will use the natural language processing technique to develop several classifiers to classify the attachment-relevant episodic simulation. We developed a training procedure by using these classifiers. Firstly, we will ask participants to provide their daily distressful events and simulate attachment-relevant episodes one by one. After each simulation, the classifiers will be used to identify whether this simulation could help individuals to attain security or not, if not, then judge whether the invalid simulations derived from their content, specificity of episodic retrieval, or the coherence of episodic construction. After that, the feedback and training will be given to participants accordingly. With this training procedure, study 3 also wants to compare the short-term and long-term effect of this procedure with the repeated attachment priming method on trait attachment security.

All in all, the current research project will provide a supplement for the attachment control-system model. Specifically, in addition to the secure base script, we proposed that attachment-relevant episodic simulation also could act as a way to attain attachment security. The results of the current project will investigate this proposition repeatedly and could learn the uniqueness and mechanism of this new path to attain security. This new path could provide an explanation for the situational flexibility of the attachment system on the one hand, and benefit for learning the plasticity of attachment and promoting trait attachment security on the other hand.

Key words: adult attachment, episodic simulation, control-system model of attachment, attachment security, internal working models

CLC Number:

B844

CAO Xiancai, WANG Dahua, BAI Xuejun. Effect of attachment-relevant episodic simulation on adult attachment security[J]. Advances in Psychological Science, 2024, 32(1): 14-26.

Figures/Tables 5

References 64

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