Abstract
Recent studies in our
American (Shaver) and Israeli (Mikulincer) laboratories, based on applications
of Bowlby and Ainsworth’s attachment theory, reveal that chronic
(personality-based) and contextual (experimentally manipulated) activation of
the sense of having a “secure base” increases cognitive openness, allows people
to listen carefully to (“hear”) each other, increases the salience of
self-transcendent values, and increases tolerance for members of outgroups. In
other words, attachment security is an important determinant of compassion and
altruism. Moreover, different forms of insecure attachment (anxious and
avoidant) are related in specific ways to deficiencies in empathy and altruism.
For example, people with an avoidant attachment style score lower on measures of
self-transcendent values; people with an anxious style feel more threatened by
members of outgroups and are more likely to express hostility toward them.
The proposed two-year
research program, administered by UC Davis with a subcontract to Bar-Ilan University
in Israel, will extend our efforts in new directions: determining associations
between attachment patterns and real-world altruistic behavior, exploring the
degree to which experimentally enhanced security increases compassion and
altruism in the laboratory, and examining the possibility that compassionate,
altruistic behavior enhances attachment security. In particular, we propose
three correlational studies to examine cross-sectional associations between
volunteerism and attachment security and nine experimental studies examining
either the effects of chronic and contextual activation of secure-base
representations on willingness to help others or the effects of providing help
on attachment security. To evaluate the replicability and cross-cultural generalizability
of the findings, each study will include half American participants and half
Israeli participants. The results will move us closer to a deep psychological
understanding of compassionate, altruistic love and suggest new ways in which
both security and compassionate love can be fostered.
Research
Plan
In Underwood’s (in press) chapter outlining the concepts and issues motivating the Fetzer Institute’s call for proposals on altruistic and compassionate love, some age-old problems of conceptualizing compassion, generosity, and altruism appear: Is it possible for a person to be loving, compassionate, and kind without also being selfish at some level? Can a person really love others in an unguarded way if she does not also love herself? What is the best way to foster compassion and kindness, especially toward people from outside one’s own network of personal relationships? As Underwood notes, there are many approaches to these questions, and several relevant levels of analysis. In our work (e.g., Mikulincer & Shaver, in press; see first abstract in Appendix B of this proposal) we use Bowlby and Ainsworth’s attachment theory as a scientific framework which has already proven of inestimable value in the study of various forms of love and kindness (see Cassidy & Shaver, 1999, for an overview).
For more than 30 years,
attachment theory has guided research on the development of love and empathy in
parent-child relationships. Since 1987, when Hazan and Shaver first applied the
theory to the study of romantic and marital love (see Feeney, 1999, and Shaver
& Clark, 1994, for reviews), researchers have continued to make remarkable
discoveries about the mental system that governs attachment behavior (what
Bowlby, 1969, called the attachment behavioral system) and the complementary
system that governs caregiving in attachment relationships (the caregiving
behavioral system). In recent studies, for example, we (Gillath, Mikulincer,
& Shaver, 2001) found that when a young adult is presented subliminally
with threatening words such as failure or separation, his or her mind turns automatically
to mental representations of caregivers, or “attachment figures.” This is the
mental equivalent of an infant’s behavior in Ainsworth’s famous “strange
situation” laboratory procedure (Ainsworth et al., 1978): When an infant is
frightened, it drops previously engaging toys and moves quickly toward a parent
to be picked up and soothed. Interestingly, in the case of both adults and
infants, individuals whose caregivers have been relatively inaccessible,
insensitive, or unreliable have a difficult time using attachment figures
effectively and hence are chronically insecure. This insecurity, we argue,
makes it more difficult for them to be compassionate and altruistic.
Secure individuals—at all ages tested—use their caregivers to achieve a
state of comfort and confidence and then return to the world of interesting
activities, objects, and peer relations. Secure individuals also show greater
kindness and openness to other people. Our recent research (Mikulincer &
Shaver, in press; Appendix B) shows that subliminal or supraliminal activation
of what we call “the secure base schema” (thoughts related to feeling comforted
and reassured in times of stress) reduces hostility to outgroups. In five
experiments, the ingroup-outgroup differences in liking and approach shown by
members of various control groups were completely eliminated by secure-base
activation. In other recent studies (Mikulincer et al., under review; see
second abstract in Appendix B), both chronic (i.e., individual-difference) and
contextual (i.e., experimentally manipulated) activation of the secure base
schema caused increased endorsement of two “self-transcendence values”
(Schwartz, 1992): benevolence and universalism. Thus, we are already certain
that attachment theory and research will be useful in the effort to understand
altruistic and compassionate love.
We propose to explore the roles of attachment and caregiving in fostering altruism and compassion. According to attachment theory, human beings are innately equipped with these behavioral systems because, during evolution, attachment and caregiving enhanced the probability of survival, reproduction, and successful parenting. The theory also explains how individual differences in “attachment style,” including insecure styles, develop through interactions of the attachment system with particular caregiving environments. The function of the attachment system is to maintain proximity to a significant other (attachment figure) who provides protection, support, and relief in times of adversity. The attachment system is most evident during the first years of life, but it continues to be important across the lifespan. If a person of any age has one or more attachment figures (perhaps including God; Kirkpatrick, 1999) who consistently provide what Bowlby and Ainsworth called a safe haven and secure base, that person enjoys an inner sense of security that enhances health and subjective well-being, promotes effective emotion-regulation, sustains positive “working models” of self and others, and encourages curiosity, openness, and exploration. Research indicates that attachment security fosters empathy in children as young as 2 or 3 years of age, a more sensitive and responsive caregiving attitude toward romantic/marital partners in adulthood, and greater tolerance of individuals and groups perceived to be different from the self.
We suspect that the
documented effects of attachment security reflect, in part, activities of the
closely related caregiving system. The function of this system is to provide
protection and support to others who are either chronically dependent (e.g.,
children) or temporarily in need (e.g., a friend or spouse who is injured, ill,
or distressed). This system is most clearly manifested in sensitive and
responsive parenting of young children, but can also be seen in other social
situations in which a person is faced with one or more others who need
assistance, sympathy, or care. In such situations, a person has the opportunity
to serve as a safe haven and secure base for others. Research suggests, but has
not yet proven, that when such interactions go well they create positive
emotions in both parties and enhance the sense of having a secure base —i.e.,
the sense that distress can and generally will be relieved by compassionate
others. A second major goal of our research will be to learn more about the
functioning of the caregiving system, its relation to attachment security, and
its emotional consequences for caregivers and the people to whom they provide
care. We are especially interested in the possibility — emphasized in many of
the world’s religions — that provision of security-enhancing care (i.e.,
engaging in altruism and compassion) is psychologically beneficial to the
caregiver as well as the recipient.
The research program
consists of three correlational studies examining cross-sectional associations
between volunteerism and attachment security and nine experimental studies
examining either the effects of chronic and contextual activation of
secure-base representations on willingness to help or the effects of providing
help on attachment security. To evaluate the replicability, generalizability,
and cross-cultural validity of the findings, each study will include half
American participants and half Israeli participants, and this variable will be
included in data analyses.
Three independent studies
(200 participants in each) will examine the association between volunteerism
and secure-base representations. We will contact persons who volunteer to help
philanthropic organizations (volunteers) and persons (matched on
sociodemographic characteristics) who do not volunteer to help such
organizations (non-volunteers) and compare these groups on different measures
of attachment security.
Study 1 will focus on attachment
style and working models (mental representations) of self and others.
Attachment style will be assessed with the Experiences in Close Relationships
Scale (ECR; Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998). Models of self will be
assessed by Rosenberg’s (1979) self-esteem scale and the Interpersonal
Competences Questionnaire (Buhrmester et al., 1988). Models of others will be
assessed by Rotter’s (1967) Trust Scale and the Social Support Questionnaire
(Sarason et al., 1987). Study 2 will focus on an important cognitive
component of attachment security: the accessibility of representations of
positive relationship outcomes (Baldwin et al., 1993). Participants will
complete a lexical decision task in which they try to determine whether a
letter string is a word or a non-word, and reaction times will serve as a
measure of the accessibility of thoughts related to the words. Words will be
related to positive (e.g., love) or negative (e.g., rejection) relationship
outcomes and will be embedded in relationship or neutral contexts. Study 3
will focus on two other aspects of attachment security: reliance on
support-seeking in times of need and maintenance of adequate interpersonal
functioning (Shaver & Hazan, 1993). Reliance on support-seeking will be
assessed by Wallace and Vaux’s (1993) Network Orientation Scale and the Seeking
Support Scale (Florian, Mikulincer, & Bucholtz, 1995). Interpersonal
functioning will be assessed by the Inventory of Interpersonal Problems
(Horowitz et al., 1988) and the UCLA loneliness scale (Russell et al., 1980).
Our prediction is that volunteers will report more secure attachment and more
positive models of self and others, respond faster to words that denote
positive relationship outcomes, rely on support-seeking, and report fewer
interpersonal problems than non-volunteers. Such findings will cement the
conceptual link between attachment security (a form of self-acceptance or
self-love) and love/compassion for others.
Three independent studies
(200 undergraduates in each) will examine the effects of chronic and contextual
activation of secure-base representations on willingness to help and emotional
reactions to a needy person. Chronic attachment security will be assessed by
the ECR (Brennan et al., 1998). Contextual activation of the sense of a secure
base will be accomplished by increasing the accessibility of mental
representations of secure base providers (Mikulincer & Shaver, in press;
Appendix B). Our hypothesis is that chronic and contextual activation of
secure-base representations will be associated with heightened empathic
reactions to a needy person and heightened willingness to help. We also
hypothesize that the ECR anxiety score will be related to personal distress in
the face of a needy person, and that this response will not be manifested in
heightened helping. If obtained, these results will begin to show not only that
attachment security—rather than, say, anxiety to please (Underwood, in
press)—underlies compassion and altruism, but also that security-enhancement
(i.e., personal change in the direction of security and altruism) is possible.
In Study 4,
participants will complete the ECR scale and provide names of people who act as
secure base providers (using the version of Hazan et al.’s, 1991, WHOTO Scale
employed by Gillath et al., 2001), names of close persons, and names of
acquaintances. In a separate session, they will perform a visualization task
that activates secure-base representations (Baldwin et al., 1996) and be
randomly divided into three groups according to the person they will visualize:
a secure base provider (mentioned in the WHOTO scale), a close person who was
not mentioned in the WHOTO scale, or a mere acquaintance. Then a confederate
from a blood-donation organization will ask participants if they wish to
volunteer to make phone calls to collect information from donors, and if so,
how many. The dependent variable will be the number of calls volunteered (for
previous uses of this method, see Manucia et al., 1984).
Study 5 will replicate and extend
the findings of Study 4 using another helping measure and assessing emotional
reactions to a needy person. After completing the scales and visualization task
described in Study 4, participants will be asked to watch, via closed-circuit
television, another student (a confederate on videotape) performing ten
digit-recall trials while receiving electric-shock punishments (Batson et al.,
1986). On the videotape, the confederate will show signs of distress and
participants will rate their emotional reactions to this situation (Batson’s
empathy and personal distress scale). Then, as the confederate shows increasing
signs of distress, participants will be given a chance to relieve the
confederate by taking the remaining shocks themselves. The dependent variable
will be whether or not a participant agrees to take the confederate’s place.
(Of course, no one will actually receive shocks during the study.)
Study 6 will replicate and extend
the findings of Studies 4 and 5 using a different activation of secure-base
representations: subliminal exposure to names of secure base providers
(Mikulincer & Shaver, in press; Appendix B). The first session will be
identical to that of Study 4. In the second session, participants will perform
a cognitive task in which they are subliminally exposed to either the name of a
secure base provider, the name of a close person who was not mentioned in the
WHOTO scale, or the name of an acquaintance. Then emotional reactions to a
needy person and willingness to help will be assessed using the procedure
described in Study 5. If all three studies support the hypothesis that
security-enhancement increases compassion and altruism, we will have firm,
replicable evidence for an important finding that can guide interventions that
increase altruistic love.
Three independent studies
(300 undergraduates in each) will examine the explanatory status of egoistic
motives in the association between attachment security and willingness to help.
In our view, this association cannot be accounted for by egoistic motives, such
as negative-state relief, empathic joy, or closeness-maintenance (e.g.,
Cialdini et al., 1987, 1997; Smith et al., 1989). In fact, the sense of having
a secure base implies by itself that negative states have been relieved or
bypassed and that positive affect and maintenance of proximity/closeness are
the norm. Hence, secure individuals do not need to help others in order to
obtain egoistic rewards. Instead, we suggest that the sense of a secure base
will lead to heightened willingness to help by activating the caregiving
system, which is guided by altruistic motives. Moreover, one component of
attachment security is the view of others as benevolent, which may motivate
people to reciprocate others’ benevolence and/or to behave according to a
benevolent code. We hypothesize that the effects of chronic and contextual
activation of the sense of a secure base on willingness to help will be
observed regardless of the satisfaction or frustration of egoistic motives.
In the three proposed
studies, we will use the procedures employed in Study 5. Participants will
complete the ECR scale; perform a visualization task activating representations
of secure base providers, close persons, or acquaintances; and be observed with
respect to their emotional reactions and willingness to help a person who is
(supposedly) receiving electric shocks. In each study, we will add an
orthogonal manipulation testing an alternative egoistic explanation.
Study 7 will test the explanation
that helping results from a desire to reduce the negative affect produced by
witnessing others’ distress (Cialdini et al., 1987). To test this explanation,
half of the participants will be informed that, after observing a needy person,
they will watch a film that has mood-enhancing effects. The remaining
participants will be informed that this film produces no reliable mood effects
(Batson et al., 1989). If the egoistic explanation is correct, the effects of
attachment security on helping will be reduced in the mood enhancement
condition, because mood can be restored without helping. In contrast, we hypothesize
that chronic and contextual activation of secure-base representations will be
strongly associated with heightened willingness to help even in the
mood-enhancement condition, because helping is a result of altruistic
motivation.
Study 8 will test the explanation
that helping depends on empathic joy – based on a desire to share the needy
person’s joy during relief (Smith et al., 1989). To test this explanation, half
of the participants will be informed that the needy person is chronically happy
and his/her mood will improve after helping (empathic joy). The remaining
participants will be informed that the needy person is chronically depressed
and his/her mood will not improve after helping (Smith et al., 1989). If the
empathic-joy explanation is correct, the effects of attachment security on
helping will be reduced in the no empathic joy condition. In contrast,
we hypothesize that chronic and contextual activation of secure-base
representations will be strongly associated with heightened willingness to help
even when little joy can be shared with a depressed person.
Study 9 will test the explanation
that helping depends on the extent to which people can identify with the needy
person (Cialdini et al., 1997). To test this explanation, half of the participants
will be informed that the needy person belongs to their ingroup; the other
half, that this person is an outgroup member (Batson et al.’s, 1997, shared
group identification manipulation). If the closeness explanation is correct,
the effects of attachment security on helping will be reduced in the outgroup
condition, where there is no shared group identification. In contrast, we
hypothesize that chronic and contextual activation of secure-base
representations will be strongly associated with heightened willingness to help
both ingroup and outgroup members.
Three independent studies
(200 undergraduates in each) will examine the effects of providing a helping
opportunity on secure-base representations. In all of these studies,
participants will be randomly divided into four conditions. In the helping
condition, participants will be unexpectedly asked by a blind same-sex student
(a confederate) to escort him or her to the laboratory room. This condition
will be compared against a neutral condition (completing a social issues
survey) as well as against a self-affirmation condition (completing a value
scale) and a positive mood condition (reading comic stories), because the
helping induction may confirm a person’s values or produce positive affect. In Study
10, the dependent variables will be self-reports of attachment style and
working models of self and others (see measures in Study 1). In Study 11,
the dependent variable will be the accessibility of representations of positive
relationship outcomes in a lexical decision task (see procedure for Study 2).
In Study 12, the dependent variable will be the accessibility of
memories of attachment security. Participants will be asked to remember ten important
relationships and rate the extent to which they felt securely attached in each
of them. These ratings of attachment security will serve as measures of the
accessibility of secure-base memories (Baldwin et al., 1996). We hypothesize
that the helping condition will lead to higher reports of secure attachment,
more positive working models of self and others, and higher accessibility of
positive relationship outcomes and memories of attachment security than
neutral, self-affirmation, and positive affect conditions. These studies will
begin to show that compassion and altruism have positive, security-enhancing
effects on ‘givers’ as well as ‘receivers’ (Underwood, in press).
All of the proposed studies will involve well-validated measures and experimental procedures. All will be conducted in accordance with the ethical guidelines of the American Psychological Association and our universities’ human subjects review committees (which means that informed consent will be obtained and proper debriefing will take place). Most of the studies are designed to increase at least some of the participants’ sense of compassion and feelings of security, and none will experimentally strengthen insecurity even momentarily. The results will be widely disseminated in professional journal articles and book chapters, and are likely to have both scientific and practical consequences.
Appendix A:
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Cross, J. A., & Neuringer-Benefiel, H. E. (1986). Where is the altruism in
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M., Houlihan, D., Arps, K., Fultz, J., & Beaman, A. (1987). Empathy-based
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357-364.
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review). Attachment theory and concern for others’ welfare: Evidence that
activation of the sense of secure base promotes endorsement of
self-transcendence values.
Mikulincer, M., &
Shaver, P. R. (in press). Attachment theory and intergroup bias: Evidence that
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Appendix B: Abstracts of Recent Studies
From Mikulincer & Shaver (in press), “Attachment theory and
intergroup bias: Evidence that priming the secure base schema attenuates
negative reactions to outgroups”:
Five studies examined
the effects of priming the secure base schema on intergroup bias. In all five
studies, Israeli undergraduates were divided into three priming
conditions—secure base schema, positive affect, neutral control—and their
evaluative reactions to ingroup or outgroup members were assessed. In addition,
Studies 1-2 examined the possible effects of dispositional attachment style,
Studies 2-5 examined an alternative mood interpretation, Study 3 examined the
mediating role of threat appraisal of outgroups, and Studies 4-5 examined the
effects of secure base priming while inducing a threat to self-esteem or
cultural worldview. Across studies, secure base priming led to less
negative evaluative reactions toward outgroups as compared to positive affect
and neutral control conditions. These effects were replicated using
different priming techniques and different outgroups. In addition, whereas the
effects of secure base priming did not depend on attachment style (although
anxiously attached individuals were more threatened by and more hostile toward
outgroup members) and cannot be explained by mood induction, they seemed to be
mediated by threat appraisal and to occur even when self-esteem or cultural
worldview was threatened. The discussion considers a variety of possible
mechanisms and emphasizes the relevance of attachment theory for understanding
intergroup attitudes.
From Mikulincer et al. (under review), “Attachment theory and concern for others’ welfare: Evidence that activation of the sense of having a secure base promotes endorsement of self-transcendence values”:
Three studies examined the effects of
chronic and contextual activation of the sense of having a secure base on the
endorsement of self-transcendence values. The sense of having a secure base was
primed by asking Israeli undergraduates to recollect personal memories or watch
a pictorial representation of supportive others, and this condition was
compared against the priming of attachment-unrelated positive affect and the
priming of neutral issues. After the priming manipulation, participants
reported on the importance of two self-transcendence values – benevolence and
universalism (Studies 1-2) – or spontaneously generated a list of their own
most important values (Study 3). In addition, the chronic sense of attachment
security was assessed along dimensions of avoidance and anxiety. Secure-base
priming and lower scores on attachment avoidance were significantly associated
with heightened endorsement of self-transcendence values. These effects could
not be explained by the potential confound of induced or reported mood. The
findings emphasize the relevance of attachment theory for understanding values
that underlie reactions to others’ needs.