Elsevier

Current Opinion in Psychology

Volume 25, February 2019, Pages 110-114
Current Opinion in Psychology

Attachment and prejudice

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.04.003Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Insecurity links to prejudice via different mechanisms, but most involve threat.

  • Research using priming methods suggests attachment insecurity may cause prejudice.

  • Future research should include the experimental manipulation of mediators.

There is a paucity of research that examines prejudice from an attachment theory perspective. Herein we make theoretical links between attachment patterns and levels of prejudice. Perceptions of outgroup threat, which activate the attachment system, are thought to lead to fear and prejudice for those high in attachment anxiety, and to distancing and prejudice for those high in attachment avoidance. We review the literature that examines the associations between attachment patterns and prejudice; evidence from attachment priming studies suggests a causal role of attachment security in reducing prejudice. We identify several mediators of these links: empathy, negative emotions, trust, social dominance orientation, romanticism, and contact quality. Future research should manipulate potential mediators and use psychophysiological assessments of threat.

Introduction

Prejudice and discrimination are important social problems worldwide [1]. Our aim is to review the small body of research that applies attachment theory to understand individual differences in prejudice. Because this area is understudied, we chose a more comprehensive approach that covered papers published from 2001 to most recently, 2016, that focused on ethnicity, immigrants, religion, gender, lesbian/gay/bisexual and elderly outgroups. (We excluded two papers on disabled, mentally ill and physically ill because these targets potentially represent a large number of varied categories that were not comprehensively examined.) In general, attachment anxiety and avoidance are positively associated with prejudice via different mechanisms; however most presumably involve threat that activates the attachment system. Perceptions of outgroup threat are thought to lead to fear and prejudice for those high in attachment anxiety, and to distancing and prejudice for those high in attachment avoidance (see Figure 1).

Section snippets

Attachment and theoretical links to prejudice

Attachment theory explains how childhood relationship experiences influence expectations and behaviours within relationships throughout life [2, 3]. Individual experiential differences in consistency of sensitivity and responsiveness to needs in early childhood lay the foundations for individual attachment-related behavioural repertoires (patterns). Attachment patterns vary on two dimensions: attachment-related anxiety (related to fear of abandonment) and attachment-related avoidance (related

Attachment and prejudice: evidence about ethnic and gender outgroups

The most consistently examined targets of prejudice in this area are immigrants and people of different ethnicities or religions, with a few studies of other outgroups (e.g. aged adults [19], LGB individuals with mixed results, [20, 21, 22, 23], and gender). For example, Di Pentima and Toni [24] examined the links between attachment orientation and subtle and blatant prejudice against immigrants. They discovered that secure Italian adolescents (age 13–19) were lower in blatant and subtle

Primed attachment and prejudice studies

The above studies are correlational and cannot address causal processes. In an attempt to examine causation, researchers have manipulated attachment security temporarily by priming it subliminally or supraliminally to examine how it affects prejudice and discrimination. Research shows that participants primed with an attachment pattern think, act and feel in ways consistent with those who have that attachment orientation, due to the activation of working models of attachment [31]. For example,

Discussion and conclusions

Research involves participants from several countries (UK, US, Italy, Israel, Netherlands) using different prejudice targets, suggesting some robustness in effects. Exceptions are homonegativity, disability, and ageism, where research is sparse or has mixed results. Future research should continue to test causal effects and include the experimental manipulation of mediators [46]. Researchers should directly measure perceived threat (and its reduction), perhaps using psychophysiological

Funding

This research did not received any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Conflict of interest statement

Nothing declared.

Acknowledgment

We thank Janet Ruscher for helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript.

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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