Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Theory of Romantic Attachment in Adulthood

Theory of Romantic Attachment in Adulthood

Attachment is a long-standing connection or bond with others. While Attachment Theory was conceived in developmental psychology to describe infant-caregiver bonding, it's been extended into adulthood to include romantic relationships.

Attachment Styles

Attachment Styles

Jeffrey Simpson's attachment theory suggests that early caregiver relationships shape lasting patterns of behavior and emotional regulation, known as attachment styles. These patterns are organized along two key dimensions: self-esteem and interpersonal trust. The intersection of these dimensions produces four primary attachment styles that typically persist throughout life and significantly influence how individuals form and maintain relationships.Secure Attachment StyleIndividuals with a...

Attachment

Attachment

Attachment is vital for infant development, as warm social interactions support growth and well-being. In a classic 1958 study by Harry Harlow, the significance of warmth and comfort in forming attachments was examined. Harlow separated newborn monkeys from their mothers and provided two artificial "mothers": one made of cold wire and the other covered in soft cloth. Despite the wire mother offering food, the infant monkeys preferred the comfort of the cloth mother, demonstrating that physical...

Relationship with Parents: Attachment

Relationship with Parents: Attachment

Parent-child interactions lay the foundation for how we understand relationships throughout life. These interactions are not uniform across families; instead, they are shaped by a range of environmental, emotional, and behavioral factors unique to each caregiver-child dynamic. Social psychologists study these early relationships to understand how patterns formed in infancy influence social functioning and interpersonal behavior in adulthood.Attachment Theory and Early Relational ModelsJohn...

Hazan and Shaver's Attachment Styles

Hazan and Shaver's Attachment Styles

Attachment theory, developed initially to explain infant–caregiver bonds, has been extended to illuminate patterns of intimacy in adult romantic relationships. Psychologists Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver proposed that the attachment styles observed in infancy form a framework for how individuals approach emotional closeness and conflict in adulthood. These attachment styles—secure, avoidant, and anxious—are linked to enduring patterns of behavior and emotional regulation in adult relationships.

Impact of Schemas

Impact of Schemas

Schemas are cognitive structures that provide a framework for interpreting and organizing social information. They help individuals navigate complex environments by offering expectations about people, events, and behaviors. Schemas influence attention, encoding, and retrieval processes, thereby shaping the entire trajectory of information processing in social contexts.Attention and Cognitive LoadDuring initial attention, schemas function as filters that prioritize schema-consistent information,...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

To update or to separate: Neural signatures and consequences of latent cause inference in episodic memory.

NeuroImage·2026

Same author

The late positive potential is associated with serial dependence effects in facial identity.

Scientific reports·2026

Same author

Assessment of Implicit Attachment-Related Knowledge: Investigating Context Invariance in Word-Prompted Narrative-Based Attachment Script Assessment in Adults.

Assessment·2026

Same author

Evaluating a Smartphone App to Monitor Blood Pressure in Normotensive Pregnancies, High-Risk Pregnancies, and Women With Preeclampsia: Prospective Longitudinal Feasibility Study.

JMIR human factors·2026

Same author

Temporal dynamics of letter processing revealed by multivariate pattern analysis of EEG data.

NeuroImage·2026

Same author

Episodic events are flexibly encoded in both integrated and separated neural representations.

Nature communications·2026

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 6, 2026

Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Hyperscanning Study in Psychological Counseling

Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Hyperscanning Study in Psychological Counseling

Published on: January 17, 2025

Secure Attachment Schemas Guide Expectations of Support: Electrophysiological Evidence.

Gizem Han¹, Inês Bramão¹, Elia Psouni¹

¹Department of Psychology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.

Biological Psychology

|June 4, 2026

Summary

Attachment schemas influence expectations of support. Securely attached individuals show distinct neural responses (N400 effect) when support expectations are violated, providing neural evidence for attachment theory.

Keywords:

ERPs LPP N400 attachment schemas expectation of support visualization

More Related Videos

An Electrophysiology Protocol to Measure Reward Anticipation and Processing in Children

An Electrophysiology Protocol to Measure Reward Anticipation and Processing in Children

Published on: October 4, 2018

Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure

Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure

Published on: September 19, 2019

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 6, 2026

Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Hyperscanning Study in Psychological Counseling

Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Hyperscanning Study in Psychological Counseling

Published on: January 17, 2025

An Electrophysiology Protocol to Measure Reward Anticipation and Processing in Children

An Electrophysiology Protocol to Measure Reward Anticipation and Processing in Children

Published on: October 4, 2018

Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure

Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure

Published on: September 19, 2019

Area of Science:

Psychology
Neuroscience
Attachment Theory

Background:

Attachment schemas, formed in early life, shape beliefs about self, others, and relationships.
These schemas guide expectations for support during distress.
Neural correlates of attachment-related cognitive biases are not well-understood.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate neural activity associated with attachment-schema-based expectations of support.
To examine how the brain processes supportive versus non-supportive outcomes in attachment-relevant contexts.

Main Methods:

Event-related potential (ERP) study with 39 participants.
Participants read narratives depicting stressful (attachment) or neutral situations with supportive or non-supportive endings.
Neural activity (N400, LPP) and ease of visualization were recorded.

Main Results:

A N400 effect indicated violated expectations for non-supportive endings in attachment contexts, primarily in securely attached individuals.
Late Positive Potential (LPP) effects showed heightened emotional reactivity to non-supportive endings in attachment narratives.
Securely attached individuals demonstrated enhanced visualization for supportive endings.

Conclusions:

Findings provide direct neural evidence for attachment schemas as implicit structures guiding support expectations.
The N400 effect highlights the role of attachment security in processing support-related information.
Neural responses differ based on attachment style and expectation fulfillment.