Implicit Prejudice Toward Homosexuals In Anxious Attachment Individuals And The Effects Of Secure Attachment Priming

Prejudice toward homosexuals is a negative attitude towards the homosexuality-group and its members.Based on the Terror Management Theory,the fundamental reason for individual prejudice is that the threat of out-group will lead to insecurity and fear of death.As a threat to the out-group,it is not only a potential threat to oneself,but also a potential threat to the inter-group.In addition,attachment theory points out that in the face of threatening information,individuals will provide a defensive function based on their internal working models.Individuals with different attachment styles tend to rely on different internal working models and use different attachment strategies to carry out defensive processing.Previous studies have confirmed that secure attachment individuals will adopt the safe base strategy when faced with threats,so they are more tolerant and receptive to the out-group.However,when faced with threats,individuals with anxious attachment tend to adopt hyper activation strategies,showing characteristics such as exaggerated threats,so they show more prejudice to the out-group.At present,most of the researches on the relationship between attachment style and attachment style are explicit researches,so further researches need study on the relationship between implicit prejudice toward homosexuals and attachment style.When faced with the out-group threat of homosexuality,the implicit prejudice of anxious attachment individuals may have different characteristics under different task conditions,based on the hyper activation strategy adopted by anxious attachment individuals.In order to verify this,the Experiment 1 used the technique of the combination of the implicit association test(IAT)paradigm and the event-related potential to compare the individuals with anxious attachment and secure attachment,and to explore the implicit prejudice of the individuals with anxious attachment towards homosexuality and its characteristics under different task conditions.Studies on prejudice interventions have found that there is currently a lack of systematic evidence to prove the effectiveness of different interventions,so a large amount of empirical evidence is needed to improve prejudice.Based on the associative processing theory of implicit prejudice change and attachment theory,individuals’ attachment style is plasticity.Current studies have shown that it can temporarily activate the secure attachment representation of insecure attachment individuals,and make them show a series of positive effects of secure attachment style.Therefore,in Experiment 2,we used the priming mode of temporarily activating the secure attachment representation to explore the positive effect on the implicit homosexual prejudice of anxious attachment individuals.In conclusion,this study two experiments were designed,screening of anxious attachment style of subjects,and with the classic Implicit Association Test as a paradigm,by recording the participants the compatibility and incompatibility in task behavior under the condition of reaction and event related potentials(ERPs),Experiment 1 explored the characteristics of on implicit prejudice toward homosexuals in anxious attachment individuals.In Experiment 2,we investigated the effect of secure attachment priming on implicit prejudice toward homosexuals in anxious attachment individuals.The results showed that :(1)Compared with secure attachment individuals,anxious attachment individuals showed more implicit prejudice toward homosexuals,which showed that anxious attachment individuals had higher D-scores and longer reaction time under incompatible conditions;In the EEG data,the anxious attachment individuals showed larger LPP amplitude and smaller N400 and N200 amplitude under the compatible condition.This result comes from the loss of control in the emotional processing mechanism,and the over-activation of the defense mechanism and the investment of more attention resources in the face of threatening homosexuality.(2)Anxious attachment individuals have different information processing under compatible and incompatible tasks.In other words,anxious attachment individuals showed greater semantic agreement processing and conflict detection processing in the incompatible task condition,while secure attachment individuals have no significant difference under different task conditions.This suggests that the anxious attachment individuals automatically activate the negative evaluation of homosexuality when they respond to the threat information associated with positive word attributes.(3)Secure attachment priming can reduce the implicit homosexual prejudice of anxious attachment individuals.Compared with neutral attachment priming group,secure attachment priming group has a smaller D score and shorter response time in compatible conditions.EEG data showed that significant differences in LPP amplitude disappeared in the secure attachment priming group.This suggests that secure attachment priming enables anxious attachment individuals to properly control their emotional processing in the subsequent implicit association test,and reduces their negative emotions towards the homosexual group.At the same time,by reducing the threat assessment of homosexuality,the implicit prejudice against homosexuality is finally improved and the attitude of tolerance is shown.This study not only focus on the characteristics of implicit homosexual prejudice and information processing in individuals with anxious attachment,but also expands the relationship between attachment style and implicit prejudice toward homosexuals,and provides new evidence and support for the Terror Management Theory.In addition,this study explores the information processing characteristics of anxious attachment individuals under different task conditions from the perspective of defense mechanism depended on the hyper activation strategy,which is helpful to enrich the theory of internal working model of attachment.Finally,this study is of great significance in expanding the research field of secure attachment priming on implicit prejudice,and provides inspiration for enriching the intervention techniques of implicit prejudice.