Social Reward Processing In Avoidant Attachment Individuals And The Beneficial Effect Of Attachment Security Priming

Social reward can be described as the beneficial and pleasurable social stimulus or social interactions that people experience.Reward processing refers to the process of perceiving and expecting reward stimuli,which can be divided into two stages: reward anticipation and reward outcome evaluation.Researchers have found that individuals’ early experience affected reward function in adulthood.According to attachment theory,interactions with attachment figures make people develop different attachment styles and internal working models,which can affect individuals’ cognition,emotional experience and behavioral responses in various social interactions.Thus,attachment may be an important factor affecting individuals’ processing of social reward stimuli.Attachment theory suggests that,in an attempt to prevent activation of the attachment system,avoidant attachment individuals tend to adopt deactivating strategies,ignoring and avoiding information that might trigger attachment related thoughts.Therefore,they exhibit characteristics of inhibition and avoidance in the processing of social information.This defensive processing pattern may lead to dysfunctional social reward processing of avoidant attachment individuals.According to existing research findings,avoidant attachment individuals have low perception and response to positive social stimuli that can be regarded as rewards.They may show defects in the outcome appraisal stage of social reward processing,inhibit the processing of reward information,resulting in low reward sensitivity and attention resource investment.Although the relationship between attachment avoidance and the completion experience of social reward has been preliminarily confirmed,the characteristics of different stages of social reward processing in avoidant attachment individuals are not clear,especially,few studies have explored the processing of reward anticipation.Since avoidant attachment individuals have high negative expectations rather than positive expectations for future intimate relationships,it is speculated that they also show defects in the processing stage of reward anticipation,and may have low expectations for social rewards.To test this hypothesis,we adapted the social incentive delay task(SID)-a classic social reward paradigm combined with event-related potential(ERP)in this research,exploring the social reward processing characteristics of avoidant attachment individuals.In addition,attachment studies have shown that attachment security priming can increase insecure attachment individuals’ sense of security,and makes them have less motivation for self-defense and more adaptive responses to social information.Accordingly,secure attachment priming may alleviate the deficiencies in reward anticipation and outcome appraisal of avoidant attachment individuals.Therefore,based on the results of Experiment 1,this study further examined the effect of attachment security priming on social reward processing of avoidant attachment individuals.Two experiments were designed in this study,the experiment 1 was a 2(attachment style: avoidant attachment,secure attachment)×2(reward cue: reward,non-reward)mixed experimental design.To investigated the characteristics of social reward processing of avoidant attachment individuals,we recruited female subjects with specific attachment styles to complete the SID task and investigated the EEG indicators characteristics in reward processing.The experiment 2 was a 2(priming type: security priming,neutral priming)×2(reward cue: reward,non-reward)mixed experimental design.The experiment 2,based on the results of experiment 1,aimed to investigate whether attachment security priming has a beneficial effect on the deficits in social reward processing of avoidant attachment individuals.Only avoidantly attached individuals were recruited for this experiment.Participants were randomly assigned to watch a video for secure attachment priming or neutral priming and then were instructed to completed the SID task.The results revealed that:(1)Individuals with avoidant attachment show deficits in social reward processing.Not only did they have low expectations of forthcoming rewards,but they also showed an attenuated sensitivity and limit attention to reward feedback.Moreover,they showed a dual processing pattern of vigilance-avoidance in social reward outcome processing.For avoidant attachment individuals,there was no significant difference in the amplitude of SPN elicited by reward cues and non-reward cues,and no significant difference in FRN amplitude and P3 amplitude induced by positive outcomes and neutral outcomes either.However,P2 amplitude induced by positive feedback was significantly larger than neutral feedback.(2)Attachment security priming has a beneficial effect on the deficits in social reward feedback processing of avoidantly attached individuals,but have no effect on the anticipatory reward deficits for social stimuli.After attachment security priming,the P3 and P2 amplitude was more positive and the FRN amplitude was more negative on positive feedback relative to neutral feedback trials.While in regard to SPN amplitude,there was still no significant difference between reward cues and non-reward cues.The social reward processing among avoidant attachment individuals was investigated combined with ERP technology,the defects and patterns of social reward processing among avoidant attachment individuals were explored in this study,which enriched the theory of social information processing of attachment.Meanwhile,different stages of reward processing were distinguished,which provided initial electrophysiological evidence of anticipatory and consummatory deficits for social reward in avoidant attachment individuals,reflecting a broad impairment in social anticipatory and consummatory processes of avoidant attachment individuals.In addition,the experiment 2 showed that attachment security priming has a significant promoting effect on the social reward feedback processing deficit of avoidantly attached individuals,which not only show us a revelation to improve the reward processing deficit of avoidant attachment individuals,but also provide ideas for enhancing attachment security of insecure attachment individuals and improving their social function.