The Effects Of Subliminal Attachment Priming On The Retrieval Of Autobiographical Memory

Attachment is a special emotional bond between attached person and attachment figure,and the attachment representations of self and attachment figures,which developed from the daily interactions of individual and attachment figures,can guide the processing of attachment-related information and attachment behavior to protect individual from threats and relieve one's pain.Individuals with different attachment representations prefer different attachment strategies,i.e.,secure attachment strategy,hyperactivating strategy and deactivated strategy,so they will process attachment-related information in different ways.Meanwhile,research show that no only the characters of attachment but also the individual's current cognitive states and social situations can influence the processing of attachment-related information,such as the real appearance of one's attahment figure.This study used subliminal priming paradigm to explore the effects of individual characters of attahcment and attachment priming on the retrival of autobiographical memories(AM)of different figures.Participants were college srudents.This study consisted of three experiments,all three experiments adopted a mixed design of 3(priming type:positive priming,negetive priming,no priming)X 2(attachment type:high avoidance/anxiety,low avoidance/anxiety)X 3(recall cue:primary caregiver,close friend,no close classmate),whicn priming type and attachment type were between-subject variable and recall cue was within-subject variable.The dependent variables were reaction time(RT),vividness,emotion entensity of AM.Once the participant finished the priming task,they perfomed the AM task.Experiment 1 and 2 adopted two different AM task to explore the effects of subliminal attachment priming on the retrieval of AM.and experiment 3 adopted subliminal effective priming to exclude the effects of effective priming on AM.The results showed that:(1)For RT,the primary caregiver and close friend were significantly lower than no close classmate;for vividness and emotion intensity,the primary caregiver and close friend were significantly higher than no close classmate.(2)For emotion intensity(exp1)and RT(exp2),the main effects of priming type was significant,and post hoc test showed positive priming was significantly higher than negetive priming and no priming.The main effects of priming type was not significant in experiment 3.(3)Under attachment priming conditions,for all dependent variables,the main effects of attachment avoidence and anttachment anxiety were not siginificant.(4)There were siginificant interactive effects of priming type and attachment type:there was no effect of attachment priming on emotion intensity(exp1)and RT(exp2)in low avoidance group,and the emotion intensity(exp1)and RT(exp2)of positive priming were siginificantly higher than negetive priming and no priming(exp2)for emotion intensity(expl)and RT(exp2).(5)There were siginificant interactive effects of attachment type and recall cue:for the vividness and emotion intensity of the AM of no close classmate,the high avoidence group was significantly higher than low avoidence group;for the emotion intensity of the AM of primary caregiver,the high anxiety group was significantly higher than low anxiety group.(6)There were siginificant interactive effects of attachment priming and recall cue:for the emotion intensity of the AM of primary caregiver,the negetive priming was significantly higher than no priming,and there were no significant difference in other conditions.This study indicated that there is reference effect in the retrieval of AM about primary caregivers and close friends.Moreover,athachment priming can influence the retrieval of AM,and that does not because attachment priming triggers emotions.Under positive priming condition,the retrieval of high avoidence group slows down,and the emotion intensity strengthens.And under attachment priming,individual's performance in AM retrieval is a result of the combination of attahment priming and attachment type.