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Holding back the tears: individual differences in adult crying proneness reflect attachment orientation and attitudes to crying

Holding back the tears: individual differences in adult crying proneness reflect attachment orientation and attitudes to crying
Holding back the tears: individual differences in adult crying proneness reflect attachment orientation and attitudes to crying
Despite being a universal human attachment behavior, little is known about individual differences in crying. To facilitate such examination we first recommend shortened versions of the attitudes and proneness sections of the Adult Crying Inventory using two independent samples. Importantly, we examine attachment orientation differences in crying proneness and test the mediating role of attitudes toward crying in this relationship. Participants (Sample 1 N=623, Sample 2 N=781), completed online measures of adult attachment dimensions (avoidance and anxiety), attitudes towards crying, and crying proneness. Exploratory factor analyses in Sample 1 revealed four factors for crying attitudes: crying helps one feel better; crying is healthy; hatred of crying; and crying is controllable; and three factors for crying proneness: threat to self; sadness; and joy. Confirmatory factor analyses in Sample 2 replicated these structures. Theoretically and statistically justified short forms of each scale were created. Multiple mediation analyses revealed similar patterns of results across the two samples, with the attitudes ‘crying is healthy’ and ‘crying is controllable’ consistently mediating the positive links between attachment anxiety and crying proneness, and the negative links between attachment avoidance and crying proneness. Results are discussed in relation to attachment and emotion regulation literature.
1664-1078
1-37
Millings, A.
5df1660d-f2a3-4637-802e-e5fe6d821c58
Hepper, E.
3536278d-e948-48f6-b3a4-ad986edcea1d
Hart, C.
e3db9c72-f493-439c-a358-b3b482d55103
Swift, L.
ab7e453f-00ed-411a-8979-81321cd1f619
Rowe, A.
25ff0396-6f5c-4608-b934-b451f0270840
Millings, A.
5df1660d-f2a3-4637-802e-e5fe6d821c58
Hepper, E.
3536278d-e948-48f6-b3a4-ad986edcea1d
Hart, C.
e3db9c72-f493-439c-a358-b3b482d55103
Swift, L.
ab7e453f-00ed-411a-8979-81321cd1f619
Rowe, A.
25ff0396-6f5c-4608-b934-b451f0270840

Millings, A., Hepper, E., Hart, C., Swift, L. and Rowe, A. (2016) Holding back the tears: individual differences in adult crying proneness reflect attachment orientation and attitudes to crying. Frontiers in Psychology, 1-37. (doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01003).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Despite being a universal human attachment behavior, little is known about individual differences in crying. To facilitate such examination we first recommend shortened versions of the attitudes and proneness sections of the Adult Crying Inventory using two independent samples. Importantly, we examine attachment orientation differences in crying proneness and test the mediating role of attitudes toward crying in this relationship. Participants (Sample 1 N=623, Sample 2 N=781), completed online measures of adult attachment dimensions (avoidance and anxiety), attitudes towards crying, and crying proneness. Exploratory factor analyses in Sample 1 revealed four factors for crying attitudes: crying helps one feel better; crying is healthy; hatred of crying; and crying is controllable; and three factors for crying proneness: threat to self; sadness; and joy. Confirmatory factor analyses in Sample 2 replicated these structures. Theoretically and statistically justified short forms of each scale were created. Multiple mediation analyses revealed similar patterns of results across the two samples, with the attitudes ‘crying is healthy’ and ‘crying is controllable’ consistently mediating the positive links between attachment anxiety and crying proneness, and the negative links between attachment avoidance and crying proneness. Results are discussed in relation to attachment and emotion regulation literature.

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Accepted/In Press date: 17 June 2016
e-pub ahead of print date: 17 June 2016
Organisations: Faculty of Social, Human and Mathematical Sciences

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 397206
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/397206
ISSN: 1664-1078
PURE UUID: 9f5afd03-e532-4ea4-99ac-737e65f0726b
ORCID for C. Hart: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-2175-2474

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Date deposited: 29 Jun 2016 15:25
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:12

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Contributors

Author: A. Millings
Author: E. Hepper
Author: C. Hart ORCID iD
Author: L. Swift
Author: A. Rowe

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