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ABSTRACT
This introduction aims to set out the potential as well as some of the pitfalls of the newly emerging area of the Social Neuroscience of Human Attachment (SoNeAt). To organize and interconnect the burgeoning empirical studies in this line of research, including those in this special issue, we outline a programmatic framework including an extension of our conceptual proposals NAMA and NAMDA to guide future research. We hope that this special issue will act as a stimulus for redoubling our efforts advancing the newly emerging SoNeAt area bridging attachment theory and social neuroscience.
Acknowledgment
We would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone involved in the inception, conception and execution of this special issue (especially authors, reviewers and the chief editors) for their patience, precious time and continued support. Especially as this special issue had to take shape during what were challenging times, we feel it should fill all those who were part of it with pride to have accomplished this important contribution to SoNeAt research.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. For the sake of consistency, we refer to organized attachment as secure, insecure-avoidant and insecure-ambivalent throughout. We are aware, of course, that other nomenclatures exist (e.g. autonomous, insecure-dismissing and insecure-anxious/preoccupied) as a function of attachment measures and reflecting different attachment traditions originating from social versus developmental psychology.
2. This is thought to primarily occur in cases where caregivers are inefficient co-regulators either because they themselves constitute sources of threat (e.g. abusing) or if they are chronically unavailable (e.g. neglectful caregiving) resulting in “fear without solution.”