Attachment and Emotion Regulation in Middle Childhood: Changes in Affect and Vagal Tone During a Social Stress Task

Overview

Journal Attach Hum Dev

Publisher Informa Healthcare

Specialty Social Sciences

Date 2017 Mar 10

PMID 28277093

Citations 12

Authors

Mahsa Movahed Abtahi

Kathryn A Kerns

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

In middle childhood, more securely attached children show better emotion regulation when assessed as general tendencies (e.g. coping style), but studies looking at emotion in response to specific stressors have revealed mixed results. This study examined how attachment security, avoidance, and ambivalence - assessed with a story stem task (99 children, 9-11 years old) - relate to dynamic indices of affective and autonomic responses (baseline, reactivity, recovery). Reports of positive and negative affect, and high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV), were assessed during a social stressor task. Securely attached children did not show reactivity effects, although they did show greater recovery of positive affect after the task ended. Avoidant children showed both less reactivity and recovery of negative affect, suggesting a dampened emotional response. Ambivalent children showed more reactivity and more recovery of negative affect. Autonomic response changes were only evident for ambivalent children, who showed less suppression of HF-HRV variability under stress.

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