ABSTRACT
This chapter summarizes the two behavioral systems that govern support seeking and support provision, the attachment and caregiving systems. It reviews adult attachment studies that show how individual differences in attachment orientations explain variations in compassion for, and caregiving to, needy relationship partners. The chapter also reviews empirical evidence that extends the study of attachment-caregiving links to global prosocial tendencies, the provision of help to strangers in distress, and the phenomenon of compassion fatigue in clinical settings. It focuses on studies that have measured individual differences in attachment orientations in adulthood or have contextually induced a sense of attachment security in adult participants and then have assessed feelings of compassion and effective supportive behavior for others who are in need. In sum, the combined evidence from the experimental study indicates that attachment security makes compassion and altruism more likely.
