| Help-seeking is the act of asking for assistance,advice,or support from others when needed.But many people do not actively seek help with their academic work,emotional distress or other problem when help is needed.And there are differences in the way people ask for help.Help-seeking is divided into instrumental help-seeking,executive help-seeking,and help-seeking avoidance.The fundamental purpose of instrumental help-seeking is to improve the ability,so that they can avoid or independently solve similar problems in the future,while executive help is completely dependent on others to solve the problem,and the help seeker does not pay attention to the method and process how to solve these problem.Help-seeking avoidance of refers to the case of a person needing help but who does not seek it.Adaptively seeking help when need has an important impact on an individual's interpersonal relationships,physical and mental health,work performance,and academic performance.Therefore it is necessary to study the causes of avoidance of help-seeking and maladaptive help-seeking.According to attachment theory,the relationships an individual has during infancy,childhood,and adolescence give rise to "mental models" of both self and others that influence patterns of support-proximity seeking and support giving in adult relationships.Attachment security is thought to provide a safe base for individuals to explore freely,In this base,secure attachment individuals can try to solve some problems by themselves,and they will actively seek help from attachment figure when they cannot resolve them.script-like event representations are an important component of adults' attachment representations.Scripts are schematic event representations that influence a wide range of social cognition,and behavioral processes.Script-like attachment representations are also proposed to help organize help-seeking behavior in close relationships by helping individuals recognize the secure base relevance of situations and social bids,prepare and organize prompt and relevant responses,andappraise their effectiveness.Individuals with attachment anxiety perceive others positively,they wind up over emphasizing their distress to try to elicit help from others.Those who have an avoidant style perceive themselves as being aloof,emotionally distant,and skeptical,and significant others as being unreliable or overly eager to make longterm commitments to relationships.Avoidant individuals indicate that they are uncomfortable being close to others,find it difficult to completely trust and depend on others,and become apprehensive whenever anyone gets too close.One's attitude toward the behavior,defined as the extent to which one has a favorable or unfavorable evaluation of the behavior,will then directly influence one's intention to perform the behavior.The higher the perceived benefit,the more likely an individual is to seek help,while the higher the perceived cost,the more likely an individual is to avoid it.Distinct cognitive processes may account for the differences found in the help-seeking process for individuals experiencing attachment anxiety or avoidance.Individuals with attachment anxiety may perceive there to be positive benefits from seeking help(e.g.,“Others are more capable to help me and I need to be cared for”)and,therefore,are more willing to seek help.Conversely,individuals with attachment avoidance may report less willingness to seek help because of their perceptions that seeking help entails more risks than it is worth(e.g.,“Others will not care about me”).In other words,attachment anxiety might be related to increased willingness to seek help through the perceived benefits of seeking help,whereas attachment avoidance might be related to decreased willingness to seek help through the increased perceptions of the risks of seeking help.This study examined the influence of attachment style on help-seeking behavior and the mediating role of attitude of seeking help.The basic hypothesis is that(1)Attachment style can affect help-seeking behavior.Attachment anxiety in individuals is positively related to executive help-seeking.Attachment avoidance is positively related to help-seeking avoidance(study 1,3).(2)help-seeking attitude will influence help-seeking behavior.The higher perceived benefit of help-seeking is,the more likely individuals are to seek instrumental help and the less likely they are to seek executive help or avoid help-seeking(study 2a).The more individuals reported perceiving the cost of help-seeking,the more they avoided help-seeking and the less they seek instrumentalhelp(study 2b).(3)attachment style can affect the attitude of seeking help.The higher individuals' attachment anxiety,the higher they report perceiving the benifit of help-seeking behavior.The higher individuals' attachment avoidance,the higher they report perceiving the cost of seeking help(study 3).(4)help-seeking attitude plays a mediating role between attachment style and help-seeking behavior.The benefit of seeking help mediates between attachment anxiety and executive help-seeking,and the cost of seeking help mediates between attachment avoidance and help-seeking avoidance(study 3).Study 1 primied different attachment style to test their influence on real help-seeking behavior,the results showed an interaction between attachment and the type of help-seeking,participants in the attachment avoidance priming condition sought less instrumental help than attachment security priming,attachment anxiety priming condition,and were more likely to avoid help-seeking than attachment security priming condition.Contrary to hypothesis,participants in attachment anxiety priming condition sought less executive help than those in attachment security condition,and even less than attachment avoidance condition.Study 2 tested the effect of help-seeking attitude on actual help-seeking behavior by manipulating the benefits and costs of help-seeking respectively.The results of study 2a showed that the higher the benefit of help-seeking,the more likely individuals were to seek instrumental help and the less likely they were to avoid seeking help.The results of study 2b found that the higher the cost of seeking help,the more likely an individual was to seek executive help and the less likely he was to seek instrumental help.However,the effect of cost on help-seeking avoidance was not found.Study 3 examined the relationships among attachment style,help-seeking attitude and help-seeking behavior.The results showed that the higher attachment anxiety the participants reported,the more they reported to seek executive help or avoid seeking help.The higher attachment avoidance the participants reported,the less they reported to seek instrumental help,the more to seek executive help or avoid seeking help.People higher in attachment anxiety reported perceiving higher the cost of help-seeking.People higher in attachment avoidance reported perceiving lower the benifit and higher the cost of help-seeking.The benifit of help-seek was positively correlated with instrumental help-seeking,and negatively corrected with executivehelp-seeking,help-seeking avoidance.The cost of help-seek was negatively correlated with instrumental help-seeking,and positively corrected with executive help-seeking,help-seeking avoidance.The benifit of help-seeking mediated the association between attachment avoidance and instrumental help-seeking.The cost of help-seeking mediated the association between attachment avoidance and executive help-seeking,the cost of help-seeking mediated the association between attachment avoidance and help-seeking avoidance.The association between attachment anxiety and help-seeking avoidance,the association between attachment anxiety and executive help-seeking mediated by the cost of help-seeking.This study explored the influence of attachment style on help-seeking behavior and its mechanism.Insecure attachment individuals are more likely to exhibit maladaptive help-seeking behavior,such as executive help-seeking or help-seeking avoidance.Individuals with attachment anxiety exhibit more maladaptive behaviors because they perceive a higher cost of seeking help.Attachment avoidant individuals have less adaptive help-seeking behavior(instrumental help-seeking)because they perceive lower benifit of help-seeking,and more non-adaptive behaviors because they perceive higher help-seeking cost.This study reveals the mechanism by which attachment style influences help-seeking behavior,and helps guide insecure individuals to seek appropriate help in daily life to better cope with stress. |
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