Mindfulness and Attachment Style: & The Explanatory Role of Emotion Regulation

1. Mindfulness and Attachment Style: & The Explanatory Role ofEmotion Regulation Crystal Pearce, William Lovegrove, Steven Roodenrys

2. Overview • Definitions of terms • Study background • The current study • Implications • Future Directions

3. Definitions of TermsMindfulness (Kabat-Zinn, 1994) • The state of being attentive to and aware of present experiences in a non-judgmental way. • FFMQ (Baer et al., 2006): • observing • describing • acting w awareness • non-judging • non-reactivity

4. Attachment • Achild’s earliest relationship with their primary caregiver creates the template that shapes expectations for future relationships (Bowlby,1998; Siegel and Hartzell, 2003). ATTACHMENT STYLES

5. Emotion Regulation • The extrinsic and intrinsic regulatory processes responsible for managing positive and negative emotions toward goal accomplishment (Thomson, 1994). Gross (1998) Model EMOTION REGULATION

6. Mindfulness and Emotion Regulation Mindful Coping Model (Garland, Gaylord & Park, 2009) • Metacognitive mode of mindfulness allows one to shift from stress appraisals to positive reappraisals. • Decentering: Thoughts are transient events, not reality.

7. Why Attachment Styles? • Low mindfulness <-> Insecure attachment • High mindfulness <-> Secure attachment

8. The Current Study • Attachment and processes of mindfulness may be bi-directionally related (Siegel, 2007): 1. Secure attachment -> greater capacity for mindfulness 2. Mindfulness training -> secure attachment

9. Study Aims Study 1- Cross-section: Are they related? 1. Aims to replicate previous findings that dispositional mindfulness will correlate with attachment style in non-meditators. Study 2 - Pre-post Intervention: Did they change? How? 1. Aims to investigate whether an 8-week MBSR course can facilitate secure attachment within interpersonal relationships. 2. To Investigate the role emotion regulation strategies play in mindfulness. 3.To test the Mindful Coping Model (Garland, Gaylord & Park, 2009) that proposes positive reappraisal will increase as a mechanism of change in mindfulness. 4.Based on this model, determine whether a change in attachment style is mediated by positive reappraisal.

10. Pre-Post Hypotheses Path Diagram of proposed mediation model

11. The Current Study • STUDY1: Cross-sectional analyses in University students • STUDY 2: Pre- post study in the general population : • Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program • Control group (regular exercisers)

12. MethodStudy 1 Study 2 240 University Students- Survey responses MBSRCONTROL

13. Measures • Mindfulness = FFMQ e.g. Non-reactivity “I perceive my feelings and emotions without having to react to them.” • Emotion Regulation = ERQ e.g. Positive Reappraisal “When I want to feel more positive emotion (such as joy or amusement), I change what I’m thinking about.” • Attachment Style = ECR-RS e.g. Anxious attachment “I often worry that this person doesn't really care for me.”

14. Results& Discussion Study 1 • There was a significant positive association between dispositional mindfulness and anxious attachment at p< .01, but there was nosignificant relationship with avoidant attachment. • There was a significant negative relationship between mindfulness and reappraisal r= -.340, sig<.001. (not supporting the Mindful Coping Model) • There was a significant positive relationship between mindfulness and suppression r= .285, sig<.001.

15. Cont. • Correlations on pre-test MBSR group, N=75 and pre-test control group, N=62 indicated the same significant pattern of relationships between mindfulness, reappraisal and suppression. • REAPPRAISAL correlated negatively with all four subscales of FFMQ but ‘acting with awareness’. • SUPPRESSION correlated positively with all four scales of the FFMQ but ‘non-reactivity’.

16. Cont. Reappraisal -0.14** FFMQ Mindfulness ** Sig< 0.01 Anxious Attachment 0.11** Suppression 0.08** Anxious Attachment FFMQ Mindfulness 0.12**

17. Study 2 • MBSR N: Pre = 75 : Post = 16 • Control N: Pre 62 : Post = 22 • Pre-test Correlations: No relationship between mindfulness and attachment styles • Suppression + Mindfulness • Reappraisal - Mindfulness

18. 2(control, MBSR) X 2(time1, time2) mixed model ANOVAS were conducted to compare effects of time and group on the key variables. • No significant changes in variable scores in the control group between Pre- and Post- testing

20. Implications • Within this study, the Mindful Coping Model (2009) is unsupported: Results indicate reappraisal decreases with mindfulness training rather than increases. • Consistent pattern across populations show that reappraisal goes down with increased mindfulness, and expressive suppression plays a role in mindfulness. • There were no changes in attachment styles, although as such patterns of behaviour have been reinforced since infancy, 8-weeks may not be enough to effectively change attachment styles

21. Limitations Overall: • Over-reliance on self-report measures • Time restrictions of participants, and use of the population by concurrent researchers meant selecting small measures. Study 2: • Low response & high attrition • Lack of additional measures. • Self-selected groups

22. Future Directions • Further exploration of the relationship between suppression, reappraisal and mindfulness. • Results did not support the Mindful Coping Model, however a much larger sample size should be used in future research on the model. • To investigate attachment correlations and changes with mindfulness training, a larger sample size is necessary. Follow-up analyses will be beneficial to examine long-term effects of mindfulness on attachment style to determine a change.

23. Correlation Matrix