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Updated: Jun 14, 2026
08:09
Psychophysiological Assessment of the Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Strategies in Childhood
Published on: February 11, 2017
Compensatory effects of emotion avoidance in adult development
Elizabeth Jain1, Gisela Labouvie-Vief
1Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA.
Biological Psychology
|March 20, 2010
Summary
Attachment styles influence emotion regulation in older adults. Dismissing attachment falters under stress, while anxious attachment may offer protection, impacting cognitive and physiological responses.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Neuroscience
- Gerontology
Background:
- Later adulthood often involves regulatory losses, with compensatory strategies sometimes failing under high activation.
- Attachment classification (AC) may influence emotion regulation strategies and their effectiveness across the lifespan.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how attachment styles affect emotion regulation in older adults.
- To examine the breakdown of compensatory strategies under over-activation in relation to AC.
Main Methods:
- Study 1: Emotional Stroop task comparing young and old adults' response times (RTs) for emotion words, analyzed by AC.
- Study 2: Physiological monitoring (heart rate - HR) of mother-daughter dyads discussing emotional events, analyzed by age and AC.
Main Results:
- Older adults with dismissing AC showed slower RTs for negative emotion words; secure AC was linked to slower RTs for positive words.
- Older adults with anxious AC exhibited the slowest overall RTs.
- During conflict, older dismissing women had higher initial HR and slower recovery; older anxious women had lower initial HR and faster recovery.
Conclusions:
- Dismissing attachment's protective functions may fail in older adults under over-activation.
- Anxious attachment might play a protective role in emotion regulation for older adults.
- Attachment styles significantly modulate cognitive and physiological responses to emotional challenges in aging.
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