University of New South Wales, Australia.
University of New South Wales, Australia.
J Behav Ther Exp Psychiatry. 2021 Dec;73:101664. doi: 10.1016/j.jbtep.2021.101664. Epub 2021 May 24.
Attachment theory suggests that internal working models developed from early experiences with attachment figures biases cognitive appraisals a person makes of themselves and others. The current paper investigates whether attachment-related interpretative biases can be altered using Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM-I).
Eighty anxiously attached participants were randomly assigned to receive either secure or insecure CBM-I training. To measure training effects on attachment-related interpretation bias, participants read scenarios involving attachment figures whereby the availability of the attachment figure was undetermined, followed by test sentences that assigned an attachment-secure or -insecure interpretation to the situations. Participants rated the similarity of these sentences to the previously read ambiguous situations.
Participants who received secure CBM-I training ascribed higher similarity ratings to secure sentence interpretations of ambiguous scenarios compared to insecure sentence interpretations. Attachment anxiety increased after CBM-I training for those who received insecure training, but did not differ for those who received secure training.
This study was limited to healthy participants and did not include clinical participants. These findings need to be replicated by assessing the effects of CBM-I over an extended period.
CBM-I training may provide a viable means of modulating attachment anxiety. If validated with more potent strategies for secure attachment training, this approach could have significant implications for the treatment of affective disorders characterized by insecure attachments.
依附理论表明，个体早期与依附人物的经历所形成的内部工作模式会影响其对自身和他人的认知评价。本研究旨在探讨认知偏差修正（CBM-I）是否可以改变与依附相关的解释性偏差。
80 名焦虑型依附的参与者被随机分配接受安全或不安全的 CBM-I 训练。为了测量训练对依附相关解释偏差的影响，参与者阅读涉及依附人物的情景，其中依附人物的可用性是不确定的，然后是将情况归因于依附安全或不安全解释的测试句子。参与者对这些句子与之前阅读的模糊情景的相似性进行评分。
接受安全 CBM-I 训练的参与者将模糊情景的安全句子解释归因于更高的相似性评分，而将不安全句子解释归因于更低的相似性评分。对于接受不安全训练的参与者，在 CBM-I 训练后，依附焦虑增加，但对于接受安全训练的参与者，依附焦虑没有差异。
本研究仅限于健康参与者，不包括临床参与者。这些发现需要通过评估 CBM-I 在更长时间内的效果来复制。
CBM-I 训练可能是调节依附焦虑的一种可行方法。如果通过更有效的安全依附训练策略得到验证，这种方法可能对以不安全依附为特征的情感障碍的治疗具有重要意义。
