Attachment and the LPP 1 ATTACHMENT STYLE AS A PREDICTOR OF POSITIVE EVENT-RELATED BRAIN POTENTIALS IN A SOCIAL-STIMULATION TASK

Psychology has attempted over the past decades to consider the ways that humans construct their interpersonal relationships. One of the dominant methods of doing so is by investigating the attachment style of individuals. The current research considers the way that individual differences in attachment style might affect attentional allotment in social situations, as measured by electroencephalographic (EEG) methods and the Late Positive Potential wave (LPP). We hypothesized that highly attachment-anxious and highly attachment-avoidance subjects would demonstrate decreased LPP peaks in response to negative target images when those images were in a sequence of ambiguous images, due to a violation of expectancy. Using a computer-based image-presentation task, 40 subjects responded to both sequences of three images and images presented solo. The Experiences in Close Relationships and Adult Attachment Questionnaire were used to assess attachment style on the continua of Anxiety and Avoidance. Data were subjected to a repeated-measures ANOVA, with factors of image type (negative, positive, random, and neutral), context (in-sequence or solo), and site (Fz, Cz, and Pz). Analyses demonstrated no major distinction by attachment style, and no effect of expectancy violation. Rather, subjects seemed to respond to emotionality of images. Future research may attempt to differentiate further between expectancy and emotionality, and differentiate individuals based on attachment style. Attachment and the LPP 3