Chloe O. Huelsnitz

Childhood attachment and adult personality: A life history perspective

Abstract According to attachment theory, being securely attached to one’s primary caregiver early in life should be related to personality adulthood. However, no studies to date have investigated this key premise using prospective data. To address this gap, we discuss evolutionary-based models of attachment and use them to examine how secure versus insecure children might score differently on Big 5 traits that underlie the meta-trait stability. We modeled data from Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation (N = 170), which has followed participants across 30 years. Participant’s early attachment status was assessed in Ainsworth’s Strange at 12 and 18 months and personality was assessed on Big 5 measures at age 32. Being securely attached early in childhood predicted three of the Big 5 traits known to tap the meta-trait stability. Specifically, participants rated as secure early in life scored higher on agreeableness and conscientiousness and lower on neuroticism in adulthood, whereas those rated as insecure scored lower on agreeableness and conscientiousness and higher on neuroticism. Exploratory mediation analyses revealed that neither adult attachment representations nor internalizing/externalizing symptoms mediated the association between early security and stability. The implications of these findings for understanding the origins of personality variation are discussed.

Childhood abuse and neglect and physical health at midlife: Prospective, longitudinal evidence

Previous research suggests that the experience of abuse and neglect in childhood has negative implications for physical health in adulthood. Using data from the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation (N = 115), the present research examined the predictive significance of childhood physical abuse, sexual abuse, and physical/cognitive neglect for multilevel assessments of physical health at midlife (age 37-39 years), including biomarkers of cardiometabolic risk, self-reports of quality of health, and a number of health problems. Analyses revealed that childhood physical/cognitive neglect, but not physical or sexual abuse, predicted all three health outcomes in middle adulthood, even when controlling for demographic risk factors and adult health maintenance behaviors. We discuss possible explanations for the unique significance of neglect in this study and suggest future research that could clarify previous findings regarding the differential impact of different types of abuse and neglect on adult health.

Attachment and Jealousy: Understanding the Dynamic Experience of Jealousy Using the Response Escalation Paradigm:

Jealousy is a complex, dynamic experience that unfolds over time in relationship-threatening situations. Prior research has used retrospective reports that cannot disentangle initial levels and change in jealousy in response to escalating threat. In three studies, we examined responses to the Response Escalation Paradigm (REP)—a 5-stage hypothetical scenario in which individuals are exposed to increasing levels of relationship threat—as a function of attachment orientations. Highly anxious individuals exhibited hypervigilant, slow escalation response patterns, interfered earlier in the REP, felt more jealousy, sadness, and worry when they interfered, and wanted to engage in more vigilant, destructive, and passive behaviors aimed at their partner. Highly avoidant individuals felt more anger when they interfered in the REP and wanted to engage in more partner-focused, destructive behaviors. The REP offers a dynamic method for inducing and examining jealousy and introduces a novel approach to studying other emotional experiences.

Early social experiences and living well: A longitudinal view of adult physical health

How to live well and the search for meaning have long been of intense concern to humans, perhaps because Homo sapiens is the only species aware of its own mortality. In the last few decades, empirical psychology made a major contribution to this quest. This book surveys groundbreaking work by leading international researchers, demonstrating that social psychology is the core discipline for understanding well-being and the search for meaning. Basic conceptual and theoretical principles are discussed, drawing on philosophy, evolutionary theory and psychology, followed by a review of the role of purposeful, motivated activity and self-control in achieving life satisfaction. The role of emotional and cognitive processes and the influence of social, interpersonal and cultural factors in promoting a happy and meaningful life are discussed. The book will be of interest to students, practitioners and researchers in the behavioral and social sciences, as well as to laypersons for whom improving the quality of human life and understanding the principles of well-being are of interest.Several chapters in this volume highlight the importance of psychological wellbeing for living the good life (see, for example, the chapters by Baumeister, Dunn & Dwyer, Forgas, Fredrickson, Gable, Huppert, Fritz & Lyubomirsky, and Myers). Physical well-being, however, is also important in order to enjoy and appreciate life, especially as people age. Aristotle suggested that bodily excellences were constituent parts of happiness, and research now supports this assertion. Perceptions of physical health, for example, are positively associated with reports of subjective well-being (Okun & George, 1984), especially among older individuals (Okun & Stock, 1987). In order to live the good life, therefore, individuals need to have and maintain good physical health. The seeds of good health may be planted much earlier in life than was once presumed (see also Crano & Donaldson, this volume). Our work with the Minnesota Longitudinal Study of Risk and Adaptation (MLSRA; Sroufe, Egeland, Carlson, & Collins, 2005), a 40-year ongoing prospective study of development, is finding that certain social experiences encountered in early childhood not only have lasting effects on our minds, but also on our bodies. Building on the wellestablished literature showing the importance of close relationships for mental well-being across the lifespan (Reis, Collins, & Berscheid, 2000), we are examining whether and how higher-quality functioning in the first close relationship— the early mother-child relationship—has lasting effects on different markers of physical health measured decades later in adulthood. Our research is grounded on the concept of biological programming, which suggests that exposure to certain kinds of events during sensitive periods early in development program the body to react more vigorously to potential health threats, resulting in more healthrelated problems later in life.Nostalgia is “a sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past” (Pearsall, 1998, p. 1266). This dictionary definition aligns well with lay conceptions (i.e., prototype analysis; cf. Rosch, 1978). Laypeople (Hepper, Ritchie, Sedikides, & Wildschut, 2012) across 18 cultures (Hepper et al., 2014) think of the construct “nostalgia” as encompassing fond, rose-colored, and personally important (i.e., self-defining) memories of one’s childhood or relationships, but also as encompassing pining and wishing for momentary returns to the past. They think of it, then, as a bittersweet (albeit more positive than negative) emotion that is relevant to the self and close others. Both content analyses of nostalgic narratives (Abeyta, Routledge, Roylance, Wildschut, & Sedikides, 2015; Holak & Havlena, 1998; Wildschut, Sedikides, Arndt, & Routledge, 2006, Studies 1-2) and in vivo manipulations of nostalgia (Baldwin, Biernat, & Landau, 2015; Wildschut et al., 2006, Studies 5-7; Stephan, Sedikides, & Wildschut, 2012) have corroborated these properties of the emotion.