Assessing Attachment Anxiety as a Moderator of the Relationship Between Self-Distancing and Emotions Following Relationship Conflict

Third-person self-talk involves referring to oneself using third-person language instead of typical first-person language when using internal and external monologues. Self-talk tactics have been shown to be helpful for self-regulation and emotional regulation (Kross et al., 2014). Because third-person self-talk theoretically works by inducing an observer, or distant-other perspective, it tends to promote a more objective and less emotional evaluation of an experience. However, there are individual factors that bias how people construe observer perspectives. Specifically, those high in attachment anxiety tend to overperceive others’ rejection and negative evaluation of them and are less accurate when judging observers’ perceptions of themselves (Debbané et al., 2017). Yet, there has been little research exploring attachment orientation as a potential moderator between third-person self-talk and emotional-regulation benefits. Because third-person self-talk simulates that of an observer perceiving the self, I expected that those high in attachment anxiety would experience heightened levels negative emotions, specifically self-conscious emotions, when using third-person self-talk (compared to first-person self-talk) during a reflection task on interpersonal conflict. I did not find support for my hypothesis in Study 1 (N = 322), or Study 2 (N = 233), but found unexpected results with attachment avoidance. Future research could explore attachment orientation in relation to self-distancing and self-reflection of interpersonal conflict in order to explain the potential mechanisms driving these inconsistent results.

Department dc:contributor.department

Psychology

Author dc:creator

• Parker, Maxine A.

Advisor dc:contributor.supervisor

• MacDonald, Tara

• Attachment orientation
• Emotions
• Psychological distance
• Self-reflection

Statement dc:rights

• Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1974/33586

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:queensu.scholaris.ca:1974/33586