Emotion socialisation, attachment, and patterns of adult emotional traits

Abstract

The emotional organisation of adults was studied within the framework of differential emotions theory and its assumptions concerning the formative role of early emotion experiences. Specifically, we explored how early attachment experiences and parental rearing styles as recalled by subjects, related to adult emotion traits and emotion decoding biases. A total of 129 subjects (60 males, 69 females, mean age 25 years) completed measures of attachment style, a maternal discipline questionnaire based on social learning theory, an emotion trait measure, and an emotion decoding task. We found that particular kinds of parental disciplinary style and attachment style were associated with different patterns of emotion traits as well as performance on the decoding task. There were gender differences throughout, but in general parental use of reasoning (matter-of-fact induction) was associated with a balanced emotional profile and low decoding biases, whereas physical punishment was associated with patterns related to hostile emotions. Secure attachment was associated with elevations on trait joy and interest and with the absence of negative emotion biases. Avoidant attachment was associated with trait contempt and disgust and with decoding biases that involved low accuracy on the identification of joy. Anxious attachment was associated with trait fear and shame and decoding biases that involved anger.