Attachment style and self-regulation: How our patterns in relationships reflect broader motivational styles
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2015-12-01
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© 2015.Individuals orient themselves in relationships using different goals and preoccupations, often conceptualized as four distinct attachment styles (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991). Individuals also orient themselves in the social world more broadly using different motivational preferences and styles. Self-discrepancy theory (Higgins, 1987) and regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997) are two frameworks used to conceptualize these motivational styles. In two studies we investigated the extent to which preoccupations in relationships reflected broader life goals. In Study 1, college participants reported attachment style and self-discrepancies (ideal and ought selves). In Study 2, community participants reported attachment style and regulatory focus (promotion and prevention orientations). Across two different samples, using distinct but complementary theoretical frameworks, we found a consistent pattern whereby a more approach-oriented relationship orientation (secure attachment), was related to a more approach-oriented general life orientation (lower actual-ideal discrepancy and greater promotion focus). Interestingly, attachment style was unrelated to avoidance-oriented motivational styles. These results suggest that motivations within relationships may be specifically related to growth motivations in broader aspects of life.
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Blalock, DV, AT Franzese, KA Machell and TJ Strauman (2015). Attachment style and self-regulation: How our patterns in relationships reflect broader motivational styles. Personality and Individual Differences, 87. pp. 90–98. 10.1016/j.paid.2015.07.024 Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/13838.
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Daniel Blalock
I am a research scientist and Licensed Clinical Psychologist with a background in health services research, clinical psychology, and experimental psychology. My research interests include 1) the evaluation of current integrated behavioral health settings in health care systems to optimize future implementation efforts, 2) the development of novel integrated behavioral health strategies tailored to specific populations and healthcare system needs, 3) broad processes of behavior change and self-regulation, and 4) psychometric measurement of patient reported outcomes and research methods/statistics.
These interests have taken the form of specific research endeavors involving: a) large nonrandomized investigations of electronic health records data, b) development and evaluation of telehealth interventions to improve self-management of mental and physical health behaviors, and c) evaluation of patient-reported outcomes through telehealth modalities and in primary care, specialty care, and higher level of care settings.
To date, the content domains of most of my research have involved substance use (specifically alcohol, opioids, and tobacco), health behaviors (specifically medication adherence), mental health (specifically anxiety, depression, PTSD, and eating disorders), and health services utilization.
Timothy J. Strauman
Professor Strauman’s work is grounded in the premise that mental health and well-being are fundamentally shaped by self-regulation—how individuals pursue goals, respond to challenges, and adapt over time. His research integrates clinical psychology, affective neuroscience, and behavioral science to characterize the psychological and neurobiological systems that support self-regulation, and to understand how disruptions in these systems contribute to vulnerability to depression and related conditions.
Across a program of experimental, clinical, and neuroimaging research, his work has examined self-regulation as a multi-level system, including its cognitive and motivational mechanisms, its development through socialization, and its links to affective and immunological processes. This work has also informed the development and evaluation of novel interventions targeting self-regulatory dysfunction.
More recently, his work has focused on translating this science of self-regulation into scalable approaches to intervention and prevention. This includes the development of new models of treatment that target regulatory processes across disorders, as well as efforts to extend effective self-regulation skills beyond traditional clinical settings and into everyday contexts. This translational focus reflects a broader aim of building integrated, system-level approaches to mental health that can improve outcomes at population scale.
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