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Attachment-style differences in the ability to suppress negative thoughts: exploring the neural correlates
Omri Gillath1, Silvia A Bunge, Phillip R Shaver
1Department of Psychology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA. ogillath@ucdavis.edu
Neuroimage
|August 10, 2005
Summary
Attachment anxiety in women is linked to stronger emotional brain responses and weaker emotion regulation when thinking about relationship loss. Avoidant attachment shows less effective emotion suppression in the brain.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Psychology
- Social Sciences
Background:
- Attachment styles, including anxiety and avoidance, influence emotional responses.
- Emotion regulation capacity varies significantly across different attachment orientations.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the neural underpinnings of emotion regulation in adult attachment styles.
- To examine how attachment anxiety and avoidance relate to brain activity during emotional suppression.
Main Methods:
- fMRI experiment with 20 women recalling and suppressing thoughts of negative relationship scenarios.
- Correlational analysis of attachment dimensions with brain activation patterns.
Main Results:
- Attachment anxiety positively correlated with activation in emotion areas (anterior temporal pole) and inversely with emotion regulation areas (orbitofrontal cortex) during negative thoughts.
- Higher attachment anxiety was associated with under-recruitment of brain regions for down-regulating negative emotions.
- Avoidant attachment showed less deactivation in emotion regulation-associated regions (subcallosal cingulate cortex, lateral prefrontal cortex), suggesting less efficient suppression.
Conclusions:
- Findings provide neural evidence for heightened emotional reactivity to loss in anxious individuals.
- Results suggest less complete emotion suppression in avoidant individuals, aligning with behavioral data.
- This study offers novel insights into the neural mechanisms of adult attachment and emotion regulation.