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Updated: Nov 24, 2025

Multimodal Protocol for Assessing Metacognition and Self-Regulation in Adults with Learning Difficulties
Published on: September 27, 2020
Attachment and task persistence: attachment orientations, perception of teacher's responsiveness, and adolescents'
Anat Ben-Gal Dahan1, Mario Mikulincer2
1Department of Education, The Mofet Institute and Tel Hai College, Tel Hai, Israel.
Abstract:
The goal of the two studies reported here was to examine the contribution of adolescents' attachment orientations (anxiety, avoidance) and their perception of teacher's responsiveness to persistence in academic tasks. In Study 1 (N = 160), we assessed self-reports of persistence in schoolwork. In Study 2 (N = 240), we manipulated the symbolic presence of participants' teacher (teacher priming) and assessed their actual persistence in a cognitive task. Across the two studies, attachment anxiety was associated with decreased persistence, and the perception of teacher as a responsive figure contributed to heightened persistence and buffered the detrimental effects of attachment anxiety. Study 2's findings also showed that the beneficial effects of perceived teacher's responsiveness on actual task persistence were found only when the teacher was made contextually salient but not when the teacher was not salient. We discussed the dispositional and contextual sources of attachment security that contribute to task persistence.
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