Center for Counseling and Psychological Services, Guangdong University of Petrochemical Technology, Maoming, Guangdong, 525000, China.
School of Educational Science, Xinyang Normal University, Xinyang, China.
BMC Psychol. 2024 Jun 19;12(1):358. doi: 10.1186/s40359-024-01857-9.
Fear overgeneralization constitutes a susceptibility factor contributing to the development and maintenance of anxiety spectrum disorders. Extant research has demonstrated that exposure to positive and supportive social relationships attenuates fear acquisition and promotes the extinction of conditioned fear responses. However, the literature lacks investigation into the effect of secure attachment priming on inhibiting the generalization of conditioned fear.
In this study, college students were recruited via online platforms to voluntarily engage in the experimental procedures, resulting in 57 subjects whose data were deemed suitable for analysis. The experimental protocol consisted of four consecutive phases: pre-acquisition, acquisition, priming, and generalization. The priming phase consisted of two experimental conditions: secure attachment priming (experimental group) and positive emotion priming (control group). This study adopted the perceptual discrimination fear conditioning paradigm, employing subjective expectancy of shock ratings and skin conductance responses as primary assessment indices. Individual difference variables were measured using corresponding psychological measurement scales.
In terms of generalization degree, a notable divergence surfaced in the skin conductance responses across various generalization materials between the secure attachment priming group and the control group. Similarly, during generalization extinction, a significant disparity emerged in the skin conductance responses across different generalization phases between the secure attachment priming group and the control group. In addition, individual differences analyses revealed that the inhibitory effect of secure attachment priming on fear generalization was not affected by intolerance of uncertainty and attachment orientations. Conversely, slope analyses confirmed that as intolerance of uncertainty increased, the inhibitory effect of positive emotion priming on fear generalization was attenuated.
The findings suggest that activating participants' representations of secure attachment via imagination effectively attenuates the generalization of perceptual fear at the physiological level. The inhibitory effect of secure attachment priming appears to be distinct from positive emotional modulation and remains unaffected by individual trait attachment styles. These results offer novel insights and avenues for the prevention and clinical intervention of anxiety spectrum disorders.
对恐惧的泛化是导致焦虑谱系障碍发生和维持的易感性因素之一。现有研究表明，接触积极和支持性的社会关系可以减弱恐惧的获得，并促进条件性恐惧反应的消退。然而，文献中缺乏关于安全依恋启动对抑制条件性恐惧泛化的影响的研究。
本研究通过在线平台招募大学生自愿参与实验程序，最终有 57 名符合数据分析条件的被试。实验方案包括四个连续阶段：预获取、获取、启动和泛化。启动阶段包括两种实验条件：安全依恋启动（实验组）和积极情绪启动（对照组）。本研究采用感知辨别恐惧条件反射范式，使用主观预期的电击评分和皮肤电反应作为主要评估指标。个体差异变量通过相应的心理测量量表进行测量。
在泛化程度方面，安全依恋启动组和对照组在各种泛化材料的皮肤电反应中表现出显著差异。同样，在泛化消退过程中，安全依恋启动组和对照组在不同的泛化阶段的皮肤电反应中也存在显著差异。此外，个体差异分析表明，安全依恋启动对恐惧泛化的抑制作用不受不确定性容忍度和依恋取向的影响。相反，斜率分析证实，随着不确定性容忍度的增加，积极情绪启动对恐惧泛化的抑制作用减弱。
研究结果表明，通过想象激活参与者的安全依恋表征可以有效减弱感知恐惧在生理水平上的泛化。安全依恋启动的抑制作用似乎与积极情绪调节不同，并且不受个体特质依恋风格的影响。这些结果为焦虑谱系障碍的预防和临床干预提供了新的视角和途径。
