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Attachment‐Related Biases in Adolescents’ Memory
Author(s) -
Dykas Matthew J.,
Woodhouse Susan S.,
Jones Jason D.,
Cassidy Jude
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/cdev.12268
Subject(s) - psychology , developmental psychology , childhood memory , cognitive psychology , autobiographical memory , attachment measures , cognition , attachment theory , episodic memory , recall , neuroscience
Attachment theorists propose that individuals’ internal working models influence their social information processing. This study explored links between attachment representations and social information processing by examining adolescents’ ( n = 189; M age = 16.5 years) attachment‐related memory biases. Participants completed laboratory tasks assessing memory for (a) emotionally salient childhood events, (b) adjectives describing their parents, and (c) generalized parent‐related characteristics not specific to their own parents. As expected, dismissing attachment (assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview) was linked across tasks to a deactivating strategy in which memory for emotional childhood events and attachment‐relevant stimuli was reduced. In contrast, evidence that preoccupied attachment was linked to a hyperactivating strategy in which memory was heightened emerged only in relation to emotional childhood events.