The impact of attachment threat on mental state identification: The mediating role of negative emotion and the moderating role of attachment styles

Abstract

We conducted two experimental studies to explore the mediating role of negative emotion and the moderating role of attachment styles when predicting mental state identification (MSI) in threatening contexts. The Chinese version of “Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task” (RMET) was used as a proxy for MSI. In Study 1, 123 participants were recruited to complete the RMET task after “recall-writing” threat inductions. In Study 2, we recruited another sample (N = 121) and examined the effect of threats with induced cognitive loads on MSI. The results indicate that attachment threat induction can affect MSI performance through negative emotional arousal. The indirect threat effects were moderated by attachment styles; in the first stage, the mediated path effect was stronger for participants with higher attachment anxiety levels (Study 1), and in the second stage, it was stronger for participants with higher AV levels, under cognitive loads (Study 2) but independent of age and childhood trauma. These findings can contribute to a better understanding of how and when attachment threat increases the risk of MSI disruption. It suggests that, diminishing the negative impacts of attachment threat may require first training individuals to regulate emotions and promoting their attachment security.