Elsevier

Current Opinion in Psychology

Volume 25, February 2019, Pages 86-95
Current Opinion in Psychology

Attachment security priming: a systematic review

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.03.001Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Security priming helps understanding internal working models.

  • Security priming is generally associated with beneficial effects.

  • Guided imagery and visualization are especially effective ways to prime security.

  • Security priming effects were especially pronounced among anxiously attached.

Attachment security priming has been used to shed light on the cognitive processes related to attachment internal working models as well as the cognitive substrates of people's attachment-related affect and behavior. Security primes activate a sense of attachment security by making mental representations in one's memory more accessible and salient. In the current paper, we report on a qualitative synthesis of 20 studies published in the last two years to determine the effects of security priming. We found that supraliminally administered security priming (especially via guided imagery or visualization) is associated with beneficial effects across a diverse set of domains. The effects were especially strong among anxiously attached individuals.

Section snippets

Method

In line with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA; see Figure 1) the review methodology involved four steps — identification, screening, eligibility and inclusion. As part of the identification step, a series of electronic databases were used to conduct literature searches, and a variety of keywords were used separately and in combination to identify articles (see Figure 1). Specific author names known to conduct work in security priming were also

Results

The identification of articles through the searching of electronic databases using the search terms outlined (see Figure 1) revealed a total of 106 articles. Examination of these records through abstract and full-text review against the inclusion criteria resulted in a total of 16 papers for qualitative synthesis. Of these 16 papers, three papers detailed multiple studies assessing the effects of security priming (see Table 1). Therefore, a total of 20 studies were evaluated as part of the

Discussion

The findings of this systematic review (limited to research published in the last two years) demonstrates that supraliminally administered security priming appears to be associated with beneficial effects across a diverse set of domains. Moreover, as a collective set of studies, the findings speak to the effectiveness of a specific kind of security priming — guided imagery or visualization of a security enhancing interaction.

Regarding outcome variables, despite the wide array, 85% of the

Conflict of interest statement

Nothing declared.

References and recommended reading

Papers of particular interest, published within the period of review, have been highlighted as:

  • • of special interest

  • •• of outstanding interest

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