BACKGROUND Evidence points toward shared characteristics between female survivors of sexual abuse and women with dyspareunia. This study explored, for the first time, similarities and differences between women who were exposed to sexual abuse to those with dyspareunia, in order to examine whether insecure attachment styles and high somatization level are associated with trauma among women with ...

Why is it easy for some people to play together and difficult for others? In this interdisciplinary pilot study, we looked at dyadic interaction in motion as a paradigm to explore the expression of attachment in adulthood. We used a device that gives simple, quantitative and automated indicators for the quality of interaction while playing the mirror game. Forty-seven participants played the mi...

Although activating mental representations of attachment figures is beneficial for psychological health, there is a paucity of knowledge of the underlying mechanisms. We investigated how priming attachment figures may modulate parasympathetic stress response. Participants (N = 62) with varying degrees of attachment security underwent a cold pressor test, and then imagined an attachment or non-a...

The theory of good-enough processing (Ferreira et al., 2002) suggests that readers strategically adapt their parsing efforts to task demands and available resources, with the consequence of omitting processes that are less important either for the current goal (Swets et al., 2008) or for building a coherent structure (as postulated by Construal, Carreiras & Clifton, 1993). Indeed, von der Malsb...

BACKGROUND Scholars acknowledge that both biologically-founded child temperament and environmental factors are influential in determining the quality of infant-mother attachment. We present evidence for gene by environment (G x E) interaction in the organization of attachment. METHODS Participants were 88 typically developing infants and their mothers. Molecular genetic measures of the infant...

Seven studies tested the hypothesis that compared with sympathy symhedonia (sympathy for another's good fortune) is inherently more contingent on prior emotional attachment to its targets. As predicted, Studies 1-4 found that reported attachment was higher for past episodes of symhedonia than for those of sympathy and that recalled incidence of sympathy exceeded that of symhedonia when the targ...

Two studies investigated whether need fulfillment within relationships moderates the associations of attachment anxiety with relationship commitment and persistence. The authors hypothesized that individuals who experience low attachment anxiety would exhibit declining commitment and increased risk of breakup if their partner failed to meet their core psychological needs, whereas individuals wh...

The present work analyses differences in the attachment representations of institutionalized children as compared with children from low and high educational level living with their natural families. Participants were 91 Portuguese children, 52% girls, aged 48-96 months. There were three different groups: 19 institutionalized children, 16 low educational level families' children and 56 from hig...