Do emotion regulation strategies mediate the attachment-paranoia association? An experimental study of repeated attachment imagery priming and stress buffering.

Autor: Sood M; School of Psychology, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK., Carnelley KB; School of Psychology, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK., Newman-Taylor K; School of Psychology, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Psychology and psychotherapy [Psychol Psychother] 2022 Sep; Vol. 95 (3), pp. 781-806. Date of Electronic Publication: 2022 May 16.
DOI: 10.1111/papt.12398
Abstrakt: Objectives: Paranoia describes unfounded interpersonal threat beliefs. Secure attachment imagery attenuates paranoia, but limited research examines mechanisms of change and no studies examine how secure imagery may be implemented most effectively in clinical practice. In this study, we tested: (a) the causal impact of secure, anxious, and avoidant attachment imagery on paranoia and anxiety, (b) whether emotion regulation strategies mediate these relationships, and (c) whether secure imagery buffers against social stress.
Design: We utilized a longitudinal, experimental design.
Method: A general population sample with high non-clinical paranoia (N = 265) completed measures of paranoia, anxiety, and emotion regulation strategies. Participants were randomly allocated to secure, anxious, or avoidant conditions and repeated an imagery prime for four days prior to a social stress task.
Results: Relative to anxious and avoidant imagery, secure imagery decreased state paranoia and anxiety. These associations were not mediated by state emotion regulation strategies, and secure imagery did not buffer against stress. Exploratory analyses on trait variables revealed that: (a) hyperactivating strategies mediated the association between attachment anxiety and paranoia, and (b) suppression mediated the association between attachment avoidance and paranoia.
Conclusions: Secure attachment imagery reduces state paranoia and anxiety and could be incorporated into psychotherapies to attenuate clinical paranoia. Measurement of state emotion regulation was problematic. Attachment imagery does not buffer stress; further research is required to test whether secure imagery facilitates recovery from stress. Attachment style is likely to account for trait paranoia via attachment-congruent emotion regulation strategies. Research is now needed to determine if these strategies can be targeted to alleviate paranoia in clinical populations.
(© 2022 The Authors. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of The British Psychological Society.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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