The Effects Of Attachment Security Priming On Exploration Behavior Of College Students

Attachment theory shows that attachment systems and exploration systems are closely related,and secure attachment is regarded as the basis for individuals to safely explore the world.This research adopted 3 studies to examine the effect of attachment security on exploration behavior of college students.A 3(priming groups: attachment security,positive mood,control group)× 3(target type: explore-related word,explore-unrelated word,non-word)mixed experimental design was conducted in Study 1.One week before the formal experiment,106 college students completed the ECR and EBS scales online.A week later,the participants entered the lab and were randomly assigned to three priming situations to complete the recall writing task.And then all of them finished lexical decision tasks.The results of Study 1 showed that compared with the positive emotional priming group and the control group,the safe attachment priming could significantly reduce the vocabulary response time of exploration,while the avoidance of trait attachment was negatively correlated with the specific exploration.The regulatory effect of trait attachment on the safe attachment priming and the exploratory vocabulary response time was not significant.Study 2 adopted the active access to information tasks to study the explore t behavior.61 college students completed the ECR and EBS one week ago.And then they entered the lab and were randomly assigned to two priming groups,respectively for attachment security and control group.Finally,all the college students finished the active access to information task.The result indicated that,the participants of attachment security priming group chose more information than control group.Study 3 explored the effectiveness of security priming via QQ message.On three consecutive days,participants received(secure or neutral)QQ message visualisation tasks.Participants in the secure condition reported significantly higher index(learning task completion,positive emotion,learning,perseverance)than those in the neutral condition.These findings suggest that security priming via QQ messages is an innovative methodological advancement that effectively induces exploration,and the positive effect of repeated safe priming is persistent.Study3 representing a potential direction forward for security priming research.These results revealed that attachment security priming could effectively improve the exploration of college students,and the effect was independent of positive mood priming.Safe attachment priming has ecological validity and effect persistence.All of these results confirmed the positive effects of secure attachment on exploratory behavior,which has positive practical significance for promoting college students to have the courage to explore in life.