Attachment Initiates The Influence Of Painful Empathy On Avoidant Attachment

According to attachment theory,the attachment system is activated when individuals perceive the threat of physical,mental or physiological.Moreover,avoidant attachment individual show attention alert to avoid towards threat and employ deactivating strategy to inhibit processing the threat stimulus,which maintain the low activity of attachment system.When avoidant individuals experience an attachment threat,they seek psychological and even physical distance and avoid to contact with others emotionally,which impede empathy for pain in other.The threat value of pain hypothesis suggest that pain in other activate a general aversive response in the observer,instead of an empathic response.In view of this,the study expect that attachment patterns seem to explain the threat value pain hypothesis.In addition,,secure prime make individuals have more psychological resources to pay attention to and response to pain in other.Therefore,secure prime promote empathy for pain.However,previous studies have only proved that there is difference for empathy among persons with different attachment style and attachment secure prime can promote empathy in behavior level,rather than further explore the reason that avoidant attachment individual deficit empathy and how secure prime enhance empathy for pain in avoidant attachment individuals.The advantage of using ERPs is their high temporal resolution,which enables examination of the actual processing of a stimulus.Therefore,the present research using ERP technology explore the reason that avoidant attachment individual deficit empathy,and then discuss how secure prime enhance empathy for pain in avoidant attachment individuals.In the perspective of the relationship between attachment patterns and empathy for pain,the current research mainly explored how attachment modes affected empathy for pain and how attachment secure prime enhanced empathy for pain.The basic hypotheses of the research were as follows: comparing to secure attachment individuals,avoidant attachment individuals under attachment threat prime are lack of empathy for pain.Moreover,avoidant attachment individuals show early attention alert-avoidance to pain in other and late cognitive and controlled processing is weaker.Attachment secure prime enhanced empathy for pain.What's more,attachment secure prime weaken early attention alert-avoidance of avoidant attachment individuals and increase the late cognitive resources to process pain in other.The experiment 1 discussed that when the attachment threat prime was presented,the processing characteristics of pain in other for avoidant attachment individuals to explain the reason that they lack empathy for pain.The experiment 1 was a 2(attachment style: avoidant attachment,secure attachment)×2(prime: attachment threat prime,neutral prime)×2(task: pain judgement,no-pain judgement)mixed experimental design.The experiment 2 discussed that when the attachment secure prime was presented,the processing characteristics of pain in other for avoidant attachment individuals to explain how secure prime promote empathy for pain.The experiment 2was also a 2(attachment style: avoidant attachment,secure attachment)×2(prime:attachment secure prime,neutral prime)×2(task: pain judgement,no-pain judgement)mixed experimental design.The research measured the indicators of empathy(N100,N200 and LPP amplitude)to discuss the two issue.The results showed that:(1)The results showed that attachment patterns affect empathy for pain.The avoidant attachment individuals show avoidance to pain in other rather empathy,while secure attachment individual show empathy to pain in other.(2)The reason that avoidant attachment individuals lack empathy for pain was early early attention alert-avoidance and late top to bottom processing(deactivating strategy).when attachment threat prime was presented,subjective pain ratings of intensity,the mean RTs,peaks of N200 and averaged amplitudes of LPP of avoidant attachment participants for pain judgement task were lower than secure ones.However,the peaks of N100 had no significant difference in painful judgment task was found between avoidant attachment participants and secure attachment participants,and pain judgement induce more negative N100 amplitude than no-pain judgement.That is,when attachment threat prime has been presented,the mechanism that attached avoidance persons were lack of empathy for pain included that they displayed automatic vigilance-avoidance towards pain stimulus and late top to bottom processing-deactivating strategy.(3)Attachment secure prime facilitate empathy for pain of avoidant attachment individuals.The mean RTs,the peaks of N100 and N200 had no significant difference in painful judgment task between secure prime and neutral prime.What's more,compare to neutral prime,subjective pain ratings of intensity and self-unpleasantness ratings in secure prime were stronger.The averaged amplitudes of LPP of avoidant attachment participants for pain judgement task in secure prime were higher than that in neutralprime,That is,the findings suggested that the effect that secure prime promote empathy take place in the early automatic process stage and late stage of cognitive control.Attachment secure prime weaken automatic vigilance-avoidance towards pain stimulus.At late stage of processing pain in other,secure prime enhance emotional regulation ability,which can make participants use more cognitive resource to process pain in other.Therefore,secure prime enhance empathy for pain.The findings have been further examine the attachment primes effects on empathy for pain for avoidant attachment individuals,which not only enrich the research with the link between empathy for pain and attachment patterns,but also broaden “threat value of pain hypothesis”.Moreover,the consequences have great significance on promoting avoidant individuals know well about the need and the perception of emotion for partner in intimate relationship and contributing to the development of intimate relationship.The innovation of this study was that the attachment mode was considered to be linked with the threat of pain empathy hypothesis.In addition,it is not similar in the current study to the previous researches that use attachment secure words or the words of attachment figure to prime attachment system,instead it is the attachment situation pictures emerging in real life that prime the attachment system.Therefore,it is more ecological.