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The impact of repeated attachment priming on paranoia, mood and help-seeking intentions in an analogue sample

The impact of repeated attachment priming on paranoia, mood and help-seeking intentions in an analogue sample
The impact of repeated attachment priming on paranoia, mood and help-seeking intentions in an analogue sample

Attachment security priming effects therapeutic change in people with depression and anxiety. Preliminary studies indicate that visualising secure attachment memories also reduces paranoia in non-clinical and clinical groups, probably due to a decrease in cognitive fusion. Benefits to clinical populations depend on the sustainability of these effects and the impact on help-seeking behaviours. The combination of paranoia and an insecure-avoidant attachment style is likely to be a particular barrier to help seeking. We used a longitudinal experimental design to test the impact of repeated attachment priming on paranoia, mood and help-seeking intentions and whether cognitive fusion mediates these effects (pre-registration: https://osf.io/5yebw). Seventy-nine people with high levels of non-clinical paranoia, aged 18–50 years (M = 20.53, SD = 4.57), were randomly assigned to a secure or insecure-avoidant priming condition. Participants rehearsed the visualisa-tion prime on four consecutive days and were assessed on standardised measures of paranoia, positive and negative affect, help-seeking intentions and cognitive fusion. A series of mixed-model analyses of variance showed that security priming decreases paranoia, negative affect and cognitive fusion and increases positive affect and help seeking, compared to insecure-avoidant priming. Ex-amining the impact of primed attachment (rather than measured attachment style) allows us to draw conclusions about the causal processes involved; mediation analyses showed indirect effects of the primes on paranoia and negative affect through cognitive fusion. With a growing understanding of (1) the impact of security priming on paranoia, affect and help-seeking behaviours, (2) causal mechanisms and (3) sustainability of effects, security priming may be developed into a viable intervention for clinical populations.

Affect, Attachment, Avoidant attachment, Cognitive fusion, Help seeking, Mood, Paranoia, Security priming
2076-3425
Newman-Taylor, Katherine
e090b9da-6ede-45d5-8a56-2e86c2dafef7
Sood, Monica
185fb97e-a111-45e1-bbe8-d865d301ef9f
Rowe, Angela
593ac112-38e4-4da4-aec6-962ce8e98f43
Carnelley, Katherine
02a55020-a0bc-480e-a0ff-c8fe56ee9c36
Newman-Taylor, Katherine
e090b9da-6ede-45d5-8a56-2e86c2dafef7
Sood, Monica
185fb97e-a111-45e1-bbe8-d865d301ef9f
Rowe, Angela
593ac112-38e4-4da4-aec6-962ce8e98f43
Carnelley, Katherine
02a55020-a0bc-480e-a0ff-c8fe56ee9c36

Newman-Taylor, Katherine, Sood, Monica, Rowe, Angela and Carnelley, Katherine (2021) The impact of repeated attachment priming on paranoia, mood and help-seeking intentions in an analogue sample. Brain Sciences, 11 (10), [1257]. (doi:10.3390/brainsci11101257).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Attachment security priming effects therapeutic change in people with depression and anxiety. Preliminary studies indicate that visualising secure attachment memories also reduces paranoia in non-clinical and clinical groups, probably due to a decrease in cognitive fusion. Benefits to clinical populations depend on the sustainability of these effects and the impact on help-seeking behaviours. The combination of paranoia and an insecure-avoidant attachment style is likely to be a particular barrier to help seeking. We used a longitudinal experimental design to test the impact of repeated attachment priming on paranoia, mood and help-seeking intentions and whether cognitive fusion mediates these effects (pre-registration: https://osf.io/5yebw). Seventy-nine people with high levels of non-clinical paranoia, aged 18–50 years (M = 20.53, SD = 4.57), were randomly assigned to a secure or insecure-avoidant priming condition. Participants rehearsed the visualisa-tion prime on four consecutive days and were assessed on standardised measures of paranoia, positive and negative affect, help-seeking intentions and cognitive fusion. A series of mixed-model analyses of variance showed that security priming decreases paranoia, negative affect and cognitive fusion and increases positive affect and help seeking, compared to insecure-avoidant priming. Ex-amining the impact of primed attachment (rather than measured attachment style) allows us to draw conclusions about the causal processes involved; mediation analyses showed indirect effects of the primes on paranoia and negative affect through cognitive fusion. With a growing understanding of (1) the impact of security priming on paranoia, affect and help-seeking behaviours, (2) causal mechanisms and (3) sustainability of effects, security priming may be developed into a viable intervention for clinical populations.

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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 15 September 2021
e-pub ahead of print date: 22 September 2021
Published date: October 2021
Additional Information: Funding Information: Author Contributions: CRediT author contribution statement: conceptualization, K.N.-T. and K.B.C.; methodology, K.N.-T. and K.B.C.; data curation, M.S.; formal analysis, M.S.; data visualization, M.S.; writing—original draft preparation, K.N.-T., K.B.C., A.C.R. and M.S.; writing—review and editing, K.N.-T., K.B.C., A.C.R. and M.S.; funding acquisition, K.B.C. and A.C.R. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. Funding: This research was partially funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, grant number ES/L001365/1. The APC was funded by the University of Bristol. Institutional Review Board Statement: The study was conducted according to the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the University of Southampton Ethics Committee (ID: 30332, date of approval: 24.03.20). Publisher Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
Keywords: Affect, Attachment, Avoidant attachment, Cognitive fusion, Help seeking, Mood, Paranoia, Security priming

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 451718
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/451718
ISSN: 2076-3425
PURE UUID: 11812046-dda7-49c8-92b4-477ba011c246
ORCID for Katherine Newman-Taylor: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-1579-7959
ORCID for Monica Sood: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-3242-7925
ORCID for Katherine Carnelley: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-4064-8576

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Date deposited: 21 Oct 2021 16:32
Last modified: 28 Mar 2024 03:07

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Contributors

Author: Monica Sood ORCID iD
Author: Angela Rowe

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