More Like this

1. Attachment and sleep: A dyadic intensive longitudinal actigraphy study

   https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407520958476  

   Haydon, Katherine C.; Moss, Corrin (January 2021, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships)

   null (Ed.)

   Attachment and sleep are linked across the lifespan, but attachment regulation of sleep among couples is understudied. This study aimed to replicate and extend prior research by testing whether romantic partners’ attachment orientations interacted to predict sleep, assessed via self-report and actigraphy over 14 days. Participants ( N = 208 couples) completed measures of attachment anxiety and avoidance and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. They also wore actigraphy monitors to assess nightly sleep quality and duration. Anxious people self-reported worse sleep quality, replicating two prior studies. In contrast to previous studies, anxious and low-avoidant people slept significantly worse with avoidant partners, while avoidant people slept somewhat better with avoidant partners. Results indicted dyadic regulation of several sleep outcomes and provided new insights regarding how partner avoidance can exacerbate or buffer sleep quality. 

   more » « less
2. Mitigating negative emotions in anxious attachment through an interactive device

   Kang, Heimin; Yoon, JungKyoon; Kim, Chajoong (August 2024, International Journal of Design)

   This paper investigates how negative emotions arising from anxious attachment can be effectively mitigated through the design of interactions and how design-supported attachment stabilization can contribute to well-being. Anxious attachment is a type of attachment that is prominent in individuals who are highly dependent on others and have lower self-esteem in interpersonal relationships (e.g., “I need constant reassurance from my partner to feel secure.”). To illustrate how interactions can be systematically designed to alleviate anxious attachment, the paper presents the development of a self- administered interactive device that supports users in the contexts of underachievement, self- depreciation, and future worries. The development process was informed by a diary study with individuals with anxious attachment that explored daily coping strategies, and a design workshop with design professionals that generated a set of design strategies. A ten-day field evaluation study showed the device’s effectiveness in alleviating negative emotions associated with anxious attachment through three aspects: facilitating explicit emotion awareness, encouraging positive self- perception, and introspecting the problems at hand. These positive effects were more pronounced when experiencing moderate and low intense negative emotions. This paper discusses implications for design practice with future research directions. 

   more » « less
3. Self-distancing improves interpersonal perceptions and behavior by decreasing medial prefrontal cortex activity during the provision of criticism

   https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsw168  

   Leitner, Jordan B.; Ayduk, Ozlem; Mendoza-Denton, Rodolfo; Magerman, Adam; Amey, Rachel; Kross, Ethan; Forbes, Chad E. (December 2016, Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience)

   Previous research suggests that people show increased self-referential processing when they provide criticism to others, and that this self-referential processing can have negative effects on interpersonal perceptions and behavior. The current research hypothesized that adopting a self-distanced perspective (i.e. thinking about a situation from a non-first person point of view), as compared with a typical self-immersed perspective (i.e. thinking about a situation from a first-person point of view), would reduce self-referential processing during the provision of criticism, and in turn improve interpersonal perceptions and behavior. We tested this hypothesis in an interracial context since research suggests that self-referential processing plays a role in damaging interracial relations. White participants prepared for mentorship from a self-immersed or self-distanced perspective. They then conveyed negative and positive evaluations to a Black mentee while electroencephalogram (EEG) was recorded. Source analysis revealed that priming a self-distanced (vs self-immersed) perspective predicted decreased activity in regions linked to self-referential processing (medial prefrontal cortex; MPFC) when providing negative evaluations. This decreased MPFC activity during negative evaluations, in turn, predicted verbal feedback that was perceived to be more positive, warm and helpful. Results suggest that self-distancing can improve interpersonal perceptions and behavior by decreasing self-referential processing during the provision of criticism. 

   more » « less
4. Out of sight but in mind: Experimentally activating partner representations in daily life buffers against common stressors.

   https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001419  

   Zayas, Vivian; Urganci, Betul; Strycharz, Steve (March 2025, Emotion)

   Lab experiments have shown that reminders of romantic partners buffer against stressors. Yet, tightly controlled experiments do not mimic what transpires in people’s actual lives. Thus, an important question is as follows: To what extent do reminders of romantic partners confer affective bene ts when they occur“in the wild” as people experience their daily activities? To capture people’s emotional experience in real time, two studies, each spanning 3 months, used event-contingent ecological momentary assessments with a within-subject experimental manipulation. Prior to encountering a stressful event (taking an exam), participants received either a supportive text message from their partner or no message (Studies 1 and 2), or a supportive text message from the research team (Study 2). Receiving supportive partner messages, compared to no messages or messages from the research team, led to less negative affect and greater positive affect, and to less negative affect and greater positive affect about the exam itself. Receiving supportive partner messages had no statistically signi cant effects on subjective stress. Interestingly, the quality of the partner messages, as coded by independent raters, did not signi cantly predict the magnitude of the affective bene ts. These ndings suggest that receiving any supportive partner message, and not necessarily more subtle differences in the quality of the message, may be the key ingredient for these bene ts to occur. The present work advances understanding of how the symbolic presence of partners confers affective regulatory bene ts in everyday life. Implications for emotion regulation and the utility of integrating perspectives from adult attachment are discussed. 

   more » « less
5. Nucleus accumbens dopamine release reflects the selective nature of pair bonds

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.12.041  

   Pierce, Anne F; Protter, David SW; Watanabe, Yurika L; Chapel, Gabriel D; Cameron, Ryan T; Donaldson, Zoe R (February 2024, Current Biology)

   In monogamous species, prosocial behaviors directed toward partners are dramatically different from those directed toward unknown individuals and potential threats. Dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens has a well-established role in social reward and motivation, but how this mechanism may be engaged to drive the highly divergent social behaviors directed at a partner or unfamiliar conspecific remains unknown. Using monogamous prairie voles, we first employed receptor pharmacology in partner preference and social operant tasks to show that dopamine is critical for the appetitive drive for social interaction but not for low-effort, unconditioned consummatory behaviors. We then leveraged the subsecond temporal resolution of the fluorescent biosensor, GRABDA, to ask whether differential dopamine release might distinguish between partner and novel social access and interaction. We found that partner seeking, anticipation, and interaction resulted in more accumbal dopamine release than the same events directed toward a novel vole. Further, partnerassociated dopamine release decreased after prolonged partner separation. Our results are consistent with a model in which dopamine signaling plays a prominent role in the appetitive aspects of social interactions. Within this framework, differences in partner- and novel-associated dopamine release reflect the selective nature of pair bonds and may drive the partner- and novel-directed social behaviors that reinforce and cement bonds over time. This provides a potential mechanism by which highly conserved reward systems can enable selective, species-appropriate social behaviors. 

   more » « less