Attachment and emotional intelligence abilities across the life course

Personality and Individual Differences 37 (2004) 129–145 www.elsevier.com/locate/paid

Attachment and emotional intelligence abilities across the life course q Konstantinos Kafetsios

*

Department of Psychology, APU––Cambridge, East Road, Cambridge CB1 1PT, UK Received 31 October 2002; received in revised form 25 July 2003; accepted 24 August 2003 Available online 14 October 2003

Abstract The study tested hypotheses about the relationship between attachment orientations and emotional intelligence, measured as a set of abilities (perception, facilitation, understanding and management of emotion). The sample consisted of 239 adults aged between 19 and 66 years who completed the Mayer, Salovey, and Caruso emotional intelligence test (MSCEIT V2.0) and the relationship questionnaire. Secure attachment was positively related to all sub-scales (except perception of emotion) and total EI score. Contrary to expectations, dismissing attachment was positively associated with the ability to understand emotion. The results also found differences in emotional intelligence abilities between age and gender groups. Older participants scored higher on three out of four branches of EI (facilitation, understanding and management) and females scored higher than males on emotion perception and the experiential area. The study highlights the importance of distinguishing fearful and dismissing avoidance and the associated cognitive and affective processes and provides a validation for the recent emotional intelligence abilities test. Ó 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Attachment; Emotional intelligence; Working models; Age and gender differences

1. Introduction Twenty years of research on the interactions between affect and cognition has laid the foundations for recent work on emotional intelligence (see Forgas, 2001 for a review). The emotional

q Part of this paper was presented as an oral presentation at the 12th Conference of the International Society for Research on Emotions, Cuenca, Spain (July 2002). * Tel.: +44-1223-363271x2697; fax: +44-1223-417711. E-mail address: [email protected] (K. Kafetsios).

0191-8869/$ - see front matter Ó 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2003.08.006

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K. Kafetsios / Personality and Individual Differences 37 (2004) 129–145

intelligence concept originally proposed by Salovey and Mayer in 1990 has provided a strong basis on which to investigate individual differences in how people reason with, and about, feelings. A recently elaborated approach shifts the emphasis from a trait (e.g. Bar-On, 1997; Schutte et al., 1998) to an ability conceptualisation of emotional intelligence (Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey, 2000; Mayer, Salovey, Caruso, & Sitarenios, 2001). According to this, emotional intelligence (henceforth EI) is the capacity to perceive, express, understand, use, and manage emotions in oneself and other people (Mayer & Salovey, 1997). Over the last decade, a body of work on attachment orientations has also provided a coherent account of individual differences in cognitive and affective processes related to EI abilities (e.g. Collins, 1996; Kobak & Sceery, 1988; Mikulincer & Florian, 2001; Rholes, Simpson, & Stevens, 1998). Attachment theory highlights the interpersonal roots of adult emotionality contending that emotional defences associated with insecure attachment inhibit information processing of emotional messages, and block awareness of feelings and intentions in self and other (Bowlby, 1969, 1988). Adult attachment orientations incorporate both affective and cognitive rules and strategies that drive emotional reactions in individuals and relationships. Secure, anxious/ambivalent and avoidant persons employ fundamentally different strategies of affect regulation and emotion information processing (Shaver, Collins, & Clark, 1996). Despite numerous calls for an examination of the personality correlates of EI (e.g. Forgas, 2001) to our knowledge, no research has directly examined the relationship between attachment orientations and EI abilities. The present study aimed, on the one hand, to look at the emotional consequences of attachment orientations across the life course thus extending a recent, vibrant literature on the affective concomitants of adult attachment and on the other, to test the validity of the EI construct (Mayer et al., 2000). 1.1. EI and attachment orientations incorporate cognitive and affective processes The conceptualisation of emotional intelligence as a set of abilities (Mayer & Salovey, 1997; Salovey, Mayer, Caruso, & Lopes, in press) highlights the intricate interactions of cognition with affect that underlie emotion information processing. A recently developed measure (MSCEIT; Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2002) has been shown to successfully operationalise EI and its corresponding four branches of abilities: perception, facilitation, understanding, and management (Ciarrochi, Chan, & Caputi, 2000; Mayer et al., 2000; Mayer et al., 2002). Emotional perception is defined as the basic ability of registering emotional stimuli in self and others; it has been suggested to have evolutionary roots and affinities with empathic and emotion communication processes (e.g. Buck, 1984). Emotional facilitation refers to processes by which affect facilitates thought by prioritising problems, operating unique memory stores, mood shifting and implicit information processes (Mayer, 2001). Emotion understanding involves memory processes and structures of labelling emotion. It indicates how well a person understands emotional meanings and emotional situations. Finally, management of emotion refers to the ability to regulate emotions in self and others in order to promote emotional and intellectual growth. Recent studies support a general two-factor model where the perception and facilitation branches correspond to the experiential area of abilities and the latter two to the strategic area (Mayer et al., 2002). The interface of cognitive and emotional processes is also central to adult attachment. On the one hand, attachment orientations are based on internalised interpersonal expectations about the


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availability of the self and other (or working models), which are shaped by repeated experiences within the context of early secure or insecure attachment relationships. Working models generalise across relationships at different developmental stages (Bretherton, 1991; Main, Kaplan, & Cassidy, 1985), and are generally resistant to revision and change (West & Sheldon-Keller, 1994). On the other hand, there is recent, affect-orientated research that supports direct links between attachment orientations and emotional consequences. Persons with secure models use emotional regulation strategies that minimise stress and emphasise positive emotions (see Mikulincer & Florian, 2001 for a review). Those with insecure models follow emotion regulation strategies that emphasise negative emotions and experience situations in a more stressful manner (anxious attachment), or tend to repress emotional experiences (avoidant attachment). Emotion regulation is proposed to function as a trait-like stylistic process within adult attachment (Fuendeling, 1998). Inspired by a conceptualisation of working models of the self and others, Bartholomew (1990) proposed a model of four attachment types which combines the affective (valence) with the cognitive (self-other representations) aspects. BartholomewÕs secure type corresponds to a positive model of the self and of others. The preoccupied type (corresponds to Hazan and ShaverÕs anxious/ambivalent style) combines a negative model of self and a positive model of other. The avoidant style originally proposed by Hazan and Shaver (1987) is divided into two further types: fearful (negative models of both self and others) and dismissing (negative model of others and a positive model of self). The four types can also be expressed as combinations of two dimensions of anxiety (self-model) and avoidance (other-model) (Griffin & Bartholomew, 1994). Numerous studies have documented the effects of working models on information processing (e.g. Baldwin, Keelan, Fehr, Enns, & Koh-Rangarajoo, 1996) and emotion (Collins, 1996) using the tripartite model, but there is still little work examining associations between attachment dimensions and emotion using BartholomewÕs model. 1.2. Attachment orientations and EI abilities Although there is little research that has examined attachment and emotional intelligence directly, there are several studies on the cognitive and affective aspects of attachment orientations which guide our thinking about individual differences in the perception, facilitation, understanding and management of emotion. First, there is abundant evidence for the relationship between attachment orientations and emotional perception. Developmental research has shown that secure infants have sensitive and responsive caregivers who communicate effectively with their offspring (e.g. Biringen & Robinson, 1991). Recent work on adult attachment documents some emotion perception biases of attachment orientations (Magai, Distel, & Liker, 1995). Magai et al. found that secure individuals were relatively accurate in decoding facial expressions of negative emotions, while avoidant persons had lower scores in emotion decoding accuracy (especially joy). Anxious/ambivalent males were inaccurate in decoding anger but anxious/ambivalent females were more accurate, highlighting gender as a moderator of the attachment and emotional intelligence relationships. Despite these interesting insights, Magai et al.Õs (1995) research was limited in its employing Ekman and FriesenÕs (1975) test. Recent failures to replicate Magai et al.Õs findings (e.g. Zoula, 1999) could be attributed to the fact that EkmanÕs test involves posed facial expressions and employs a target

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method for assessing accuracy. The EI test which was used in the present study assesses a wider range of emotion perception abilities and employs the consensus method. Evidence for attachment consequences on emotion perception abilities is also provided by research on non-verbal communication accuracy in close relationships (Feeney, Noller, & Callan, 1994). In this study, malesÕ anxious attachment dimension was negatively related to accuracy in decoding their partnersÕ positive non-verbal behaviours, as assessed with a naturalistic test of nonverbal accuracy (standard content paradigm). More recently, work that employed both laboratory and naturalistic tasks of emotion decoding accuracy found a positive association between secure attachment and emotion decoding accuracy of partnersÕ facial expressions (Kafetsios, 2000). A further, central aspect of EI abilities concerns the management of emotion personally and interpersonally (Mayer, 2001). Likewise, attachment orientations are related to differences in emotion regulation at different life-stages (Kobak & Sceery, 1988; Mikulincer & Florian, 2001). Insecure adolescents are less ego-resilient, more anxious and hostile than their secure friends and as adults experience less positive and more negative emotions in relationship contexts. Insecure partners not only tend to experience more negative emotion but also suppress their emotions more than secure partners in interpersonal contexts (Feeney, 1995). Finally, attachment orientations involve complex interactions between affect and cognition that can sustain hypotheses related to emotion facilitation and understanding. It is noteworthy that these two EI sub-domains have been found to correlate highly (Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2000). Several studies converge in their findings that avoidant individuals pay less attention to affect than secure or anxious/preoccupied persons. In a test of emotion elaboration, both secure and anxious/ preoccupied participants reported high felt intensity of cued emotions in contrast to individuals with avoidant attachment who seemed to regulate their affect at such a basic level that it is isolated from memory processes (Mikulincer & Orbach, 1995). In the same study, avoidant participants also had the slowest reaction times for recalling sad and anxious memories. More recent studies suggests that avoidant participants are less attentive to emotional events (Fraley, Garner, & Shaver, 2000) and conversely, anxious/ambivalents pay particular attention to negative emotion (Collins, 1996; Fraley & Shaver, 1997). Avoidants actively deny feeling distress but at a physiological level they seem to be experiencing heightened stress and anxiety during recollection of stressful familial events (Dozier & Kobak, 1992). Nevertheless, the research reviewed above did not distinguish between fearful (high avoidance and anxiety) and dismissing (low avoidance and anxiety) attachment. Certainly, it is difficult to develop specific hypotheses about links between the fearful or dismissing styles and emotion intelligence abilities since BartholomewÕs typology has not been widely used. There is, however, evidence that points to the utility of distinguishing the emotional processes associated with fearful-avoidant and dismissing-avoidant persons (Kafetsios & Nezlek, 2002; Pietromonaco & Feldman-Barrett, 1997). For example, in a study of everyday emotional experience, Kafetsios and Nezlek found that compared to dismissing-avoidant, fearful-avoidant persons experience more positive emotion in interactions with friends but less positive emotions in interactions with prospective romantic partners. A further aim of the present study was to test EI and attachment connections across the life course. This is in keeping with the developmental criterion of emotional intelligence abilities (i.e. that emotional intelligence develops with age and experience; Mayer et al., 2000; Mayer et al., 2002) and a growing literature which suggests that emotional functioning improves in middle


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and later adulthood (e.g. Carstensen, Pasupathi, Mayr, & Nesselroade, 2000). In the adult attachment literature there is some (albeit limited) evidence suggesting that experience and maturation might be more influential on the anxious-insecure dimension. Anxious attachment was inversely related with age in the US and Greece (Mickelson, Kessler, & Shaver, 1997; Kafetsios, submitted for publication). There is, however, limited information on the emotional consequences of attachment across different age groups. This is an important issue with implications for mechanisms of change in attachment orientations (Davila, Karney, & Bradbury, 1999). Finally, research on emotional abilities has consistently found that women are more accurate in emotion perception tasks (e.g. Hall, 1987; Mayer & Geher, 1996; Rosenthal, Hall, DiMatteo, Rogers, & Archer, 1979). Recent work with the MSCEIT (Mayer et al., 2002) also suggests that women score higher than males on all the scales (especially in managing emotions). 1.3. Hypotheses ii(i) On the basis of the literature review secure attachment is expected to correlate positively with the recognition, use, labelling and regulation of emotion. Based on less consistent evidence for differences among the three insecure attachment orientations it is expected that avoidant and anxious/preoccupied will be negatively related to emotional intelligence abilities. There are no specific predictions for the differential associations of the two avoidant sub-types (fearful and dismissing) with EI as there is limited information. i(ii) In keeping with the developmental criterion of the EI abilities it is expected that older participants will have higher EI scores. There is some evidence for attachment interaction effects with age but it is not sufficient to formulate a specific hypothesis and this remains as an exploratory question. (iii) Based on relevant studies, females are expected to have higher EI scores.

2. Method 2.1. Participants There were 239 participants contacted through advertisements on campus in a British University and snowballing sampling (where older participants were asked to provide introductions to their own circle of friends and acquaintances at work). Participation in the study was voluntary and questionnaires were completed individually. The age range was 19–66 (average 38.7 years, SD 13.5 two peaks at 20 and 48 years) and the distribution of age groupings was as follows: 19–21: 16.7%; 22–29: 16.8%; 30–39: 11.5%; 40–49: N 30.6%; 50–66: 22%. In terms of gender the sample was balanced as a whole (55.6% females) and across the age groups. Forty per cent of participants were married. Participants had a high level of education typical of the area: 78% of participants were either sitting for, or had completed a University degree (8% at MasterÕs level) and 20% had a High school certificate. A number of participants (N ¼ 57) were selectively administered only the perception and management parts of the MSCEIT.

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2.2. Materials 2.2.1. Emotional intelligence test The paper and pencil version 2.0 of the MSCEIT (Mayer et al. Emotional Intelligence Test, 2002, 141 items) was used. The test measures individualsÕ performance on tasks and ability to solve emotional problems. It provides a total emotional intelligence score as well as four branch (sub-scale) scores: perception, facilitation, understanding, and managing emotion. Each branch is comprised of scores in two sections described in more detail later. The four branches can also be distinguished conceptually in terms of experiential (perception, facilitation) or strategic (understanding, management) aspects. 2.2.2. Consensus scoring Consensus scoring is the preferred method for assessing EI abilities as it provides a solution to the problem of determining what constitutes a Ôcorrect answerÕ (Mayer et al., 2002). The consensus approach is based on what the majority of the respondents regard as correct and has been shown to be more effective than the target method (i.e. what target identifies as expressed or felt; Mayer & Geher, 1996). ParticipantsÕ scores reflect the degree of fit between their responses and those of the norm for this sample. 2.2.3. Perception Two sections measure emotion in four faces, three landscapes, and three abstract designs. In the faces task the participant reports on the emotional content of each face rating the degree of happiness, fear, surprise, disgust and excitement on a five-point scale (1 ¼ no emotion and 5 ¼ extreme amount of emotion). On the landscape task, participantsÕ reactions to the pictures are rated in terms of: happiness, fear, anger, disgust. The three abstract tasks are rated on sadness, fear, anger, surprise, disgust on a similar five-point scale. Each rating point (1 ¼ no emotion to 5 ¼ extreme amount of emotion) was represented by a small face drawing to signify the amount of emotion, and hence ensuring the task was as uncontaminated as possible with verbal content. The internal consistency for the sub-scale was good (a ¼ 0:88). 2.2.4. Facilitation This sub-scale involves task B (facilitation) of the assessment of participantsÕ knowledge of how different moods can be effective for certain kinds of problem solving. For example, the participant has to identify which mood is the most helpful when Ôcreating exciting decorations for a birthday partyÕ. A choice of three options is provided rated on a five-point scale. The other area (F sensation task) involves comparing how different emotions can be related to other sensations. For example, how similar is the feeling of contentment to Ôwarm, purple, saltyÕ on a five-point scale (1 ¼ not alike to 5 ¼ very much alike). Internal consistency for this branch was low (a ¼ 0:61). 2.2.5. Understanding Section G (blends task) measures a personÕs ability to label emotions and group emotional terms together. Using a multi choice format participants try to match a set of emotions to another single emotion. Section C (changes task) assesses knowledge of how emotions combine and


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change. For example how anger can change into rage. Internal consistency for the branch was adequate (a ¼ 0:75). 2.2.6. Managing emotions Section H (social management) is concerned with emotions in relationships. It asks participants to evaluate the effectiveness of different actions in achieving a specified outcome that involves other people. Section D (emotion management) is concerned with emotion management in the individual and in other people. Five different scenarios are presented which describe a person with a goal of changing or maintaining a feeling. Each of a list of four different actions is evaluated in terms of effectiveness. Internal consistency for the branch was low (a ¼ 0:58). The internal consistency of the two experiential and strategic areas were satisfactory (a ¼ 0:86 and a ¼ 0:77 respectively) whereas the total test had good internal consistency (a ¼ 0:86). 2.2.7. Attachment orientations Attachment orientations were assessed with the Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991) relationship questionnaire (RQ). This is a four-item questionnaire with brief-sentence descriptions of each attachment orientation (secure, fearful, preoccupied, dismissing). Descriptions are based on the initial, tripartite attachment measure developed by Hazan and Shaver (1987) with the rephrasing of one (fearful attachment) and the addition of a fourth category (dismissing attachment). For example, the secure orientation paragraph reads: ÔIt is easy for me to become emotionally close to others. I am comfortable depending on others and having others depend on me. I do not worry about being alone or having others not accept meÕ. Each attachment description was rated on a seven point Likert scale (1 ¼ not like me, to 7 ¼ very much like me). The RQ has been typically included in several studies, and has demonstrated good reliability and validity (Bartholomew & Shaver, 1998). 2.3. Procedure The questionnaires were administered individually or in groups of 2–3 persons.

3. Results Table 1 presents the basic statistics for the four EI branches and the two area scores (experiential and strategic). The results are comparable to most recently published data (reviewed in Mayer et al., 2002). 3.1. EI factors A factor analysis using principal components was employed to explore the underlying structure of the EI test (see Table 2). A two-factor solution was found both using orthogonal (varimax) and correlated (oblimin) rotation. The first factor accounted for almost 36% of the total variance and loaded on the strategic area (management and understanding of emotion) and the second factor loaded on the experiential area (emotion perception and facilitation) accounting for 17% of the

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Table 1 Zero-order correlation coefficients among branches, areas and total scores of emotional intelligence 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Perception Facilitation Understanding Management Experiential Area Strategic Area Total EI

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

7.50 0.44 0.18 0.32 0.89 0.23 0.66

5.26 0.26 0.48 0.80 0.44 0.73

7.66 0.47 0.32 0.91 0.71

4.93 0.44 0.81 0.76

5.15 0.37 0.82

5.23 0.82

4.26

NB: N ¼ 164–237. SDs are provided in diagonals. All correlations significant p < 0:01.

Table 2 Factor analysis of the branch scores Rotated solution (orthogonal) Variance (before rotation)

Component 1

Component 2

35.64%

17.36 %

Perception Faces A Pictures E

0.03 0.12

0.70 0.66

Facilitation Sensations F Facilitation B

0.64 0.03

0.27 0.70

Understanding Blends G Changes C

0.75 0.83

0.01 0.01

Management Emotional D Social H

0.46 0.74

0.48 0.23

total variance. In oblimin there was a negative correlation between factors (r ¼ 0:31). The factor structure is similar to results reported in recent research (Salovey et al., in press). 3.2. Attachment orientations Each participant received four scores corresponding to the four attachment orientations, an analytical approach adopted in previous studies (e.g. Simpson, 1990). The secure orientation had a higher average (M ¼ 4:49, SD 1.87) than either of the insecure orientations (Fearful M ¼ 2:84, SD 1.47; Preoccupied M ¼ 2:62, SD 1.58; Dismissing M ¼ 2:62, SD 1.81). Univariate ANOVA with gender and age as predictors was used to test for differences in attachment orientations. Age was divided into four groups (19–29, 30–39, 40–49, 50–66). There were no significant age or gender differences in the secure, fearful or preoccupied orientations. Compared to the lower age


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groups, males and participants over 50 had higher dismissing scores than females and younger participants respectively (Fð1;208Þ ¼ 6:60, p < 0:001; Fð3;208Þ ¼ 4:17, p ¼ 0:01). 3.3. Age, gender and EI Gender and age were entered in ANOVA models and marginal means for both are presented in Table 3. Females scored significantly higher than males on the perception branch (Fð1;206Þ ¼ 11:01, p < 0:0001) and the experiential area (Fð1;157Þ ¼ 4:44, p < 0:0001). There were no significant age differences in the perception branch but older persons scored consistently higher on the facilitation (Fð3;160Þ ¼ 4:13, p < 0:01), understanding (Fð3;158Þ ¼ 5:62, p < 0:001), managing emotion branches (Fð3;162Þ ¼ 5:42, p < 0:001), the strategic area (Fð3;158Þ ¼ 7:15, p < 0:001) and total EI (Fð1;148Þ ¼ 4:33, p < 0:01). There were no significant interactions between gender and age. 3.4. Attachment and EI The product moment correlations between attachment and EI branch scores in males and females are presented in Table 4. Secure attachment had consistent positive correlations with facilitation, understanding and management emotion abilities, the strategic area, and total EI. Fearful attachment was negatively associated with emotion facilitation in females. Preoccupied attachment was negatively associated with EI abilities but none reached significance. Dismissingavoidant attachment was positively associated with emotion understanding in both males and females and the strategic area. Given that attachment orientations were simultaneous assessed, a multiple regression analysis was conducted as a further test of association between attachment orientations and EI abilities (Table 5). Generally, the result agreed with the bivariate correlations in Table 4. The secure Table 3 EI and age and gender differences

Perception

19–29 (N ¼ 105)

30–39 (N ¼ 24)

M 43.59 (7.12) Facilitation 37.49 (3.92) Understanding 49.32 (6.92) Management 35.45 (4.87) Area I experiential 41.11 (3.44) Area II strategic 42.39 (5.32) EI 41.78 (3.32)

40–49 (N ¼ 62)

50–66 (N ¼ 46)

F

TL

M

F

TL

M

F

TL

M

F

TL

46.37 (6.05) 37.63 (5.36) 46.65 (7.67) 36.49 (4.64) 42.66 (4.06) 41.56 (5.25) 41.83 (3.95)

45.15 (6.64) 37.56 (4.63) 48.03 (7.36) 35.96 (4.75) 41.86 (3.80) 41.00 (5.26) 41.80 (3.59)

43.56 (9.20) 37.72 (4.07) 54.23 (3.03) 40.29 (3.17) 41.54 (4.79) 47.26 (2.55) 44.40 (3.27)

47.35 (6.47) 38.65 (5.33) 51.82 (7.35) 38.89 (3.60) 42.32 (4.57) 45.35 (4.87) 43.84 (3.15)

45.77 (7.77) 38.27 (4.74) 52.81 (5.94) 39.47 (3.40) 41.00 (4.53) 46.14 (4.09) 44.07 (3.11)

42.90 (9.95) 39.76 (4.80) 53.22 (3.85) 38.87 (4.87) 41.04 (6.63) 46.05 (3.58) 43.52 (4.76)

48.58 (6.71) 41.44 (5.67) 51.57 (7.89) 39.73 (4.95) 45.19 (4.34) 45.68 (6.02) 45.46 (4.73)

46.34 (8.53) 40.71 (5.32) 52.30 (6.44) 39.37 (4.88) 43.39 (5.77) 45.84 (5.05) 44.59 (4.79)

44.74 (8.85) 38.64 (5.21) 52.49 (6.22) 38.63 (5.49) 41.59 (6.33) 45.55 (4.90) 43.28 (5.00)

47.45 (5.30) 41.95 (5.43) 52.41 (7.80) 38.21 (5.12) 44.77 (4.52) 45.31 (5.51) 45.04 (4.10)

46.04 (7.42) 40.10 (5.50) 52.45 (6.90) 38.45 (5.28) 43.02 (5.75) 45.44 (5.12) 44.13 (4.60)

NB: Means and standard deviations (in parenthesis). M ¼ males, F ¼ females, TL ¼ total group.

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Table 4 Zero-order correlations between attachment styles and EI branch and area scores by gender Secure

Fearful

M Perception A. Faces E. Pictures

F )0.02 )0.04 0.01

0.11 0.09 0.11

TL 0.08 0.07 0.07

M

Preoccupied F

TL

M

M

F

TL

0.32 0.20 0.01 )0.15 0.01 )0.02 0.10 )0.06 )0.05 )0.11 )0.05 )0.02 )0.07 0.03 )0.01 0.05 )0.07 )0.03 )0.10 )0.21 )0.13 )0.16 0.48 0.35 )0.05 )0.23 )0.08 0.03 0.17 0.01 0.13 )0.04 0.05

0.05 )0.18 0.27

Understanding C. Changes G. Blends

0.16 0.12 0.19

0.32 0.20 0.30

0.23 )0.06 )0.03 )0.01 )0.01 0.18 )0.16 )0.06 )0.07 )0.04 0.22 0.01 0.06 0.07 0.05

Management D. Emotion management H. Emotion relationships

0.11 0.02

0.26 0.11

0.19 0.09

0.13

0.29

0.20

0.10 0.16 0.21

0.14 0.33 0.32

0.15 )0.17 )0.14 )0.08 )0.07 0.26 )0.03 )0.04 )0.03 0.01 0.28 )0.15 )0.10 )0.09 )0.03

NB: N ¼ 164–237. p < 0:05,

Dismissing TL

)0.15 )0.09 )0.10 )0.08 )0.04 )0.16 )0.07 )0.17 )0.11 )0.03 )0.09 )0.03 )0.01 0.09 )0.05 )0.14 )0.06 )0.12 )0.18 )0.07 )0.11 )0.10 )0.13 )0.21 0.03 )0.21 )0.06

Facilitation B. Sensation F. Facilitation

Area1: experiential Area 2: strategic Total EI

F

p < 0:01,

0.12 )0.04 0.11 )0.07 0.06 )0.01

0.01 )0.04 0.02 )0.01 0.08 )0.05 )0.07 )0.05 0.16 )0.08 0.04 )0.01

0.08 )0.10

0.04 0.02

0.15 )0.02

0.37 0.21 0.30 0.22 0.27 0.16

0.28 0.26 0.22

0.11 0.01 0.04 0.10 )0.07 )0.01 0.09

0.05

0.08

0.06 )0.16 )0.02 )0.20 )0.07 0.12 0.05 0.28 0.15 0.20 0.11 )0.04 0.15 0.01 0.06

p < 0:001. M ¼ males, F ¼ females, TL ¼ total group.

orientation had significant, positive correlations with emotion facilitation, understanding, management, the strategic area and total EI scores and the dismissing orientation had positive associations with emotion understanding and the strategic area. There were also negative correlations between preoccupied orientation and emotion perception and the experiential area but these should be interpreted with caution given the large number of tests involved. Additionally, attachment by age interactions were tested by creating dummy variables for age, centring and then multiplying before entering in the second step of the regression (Aiken & West, 1991). Of the 28 additional tests, only age by fearful attachment had a significant interaction in predicting the experiential area scores (b ¼ 0:19, p ¼ 0:01; DR2 ¼ 0:08, F change ¼ 3.74, p < 0:001). That is, being younger and fearful was positively associated with the experiential area scores. We also found two further interactions between age and fearful attachment in the prediction of perception and total EI scores (in the same direction), significant at the p < 0:05 level.

4. Discussion Although it has been argued recently that attachment is likely to be related to emotional intelligence (Kim, submitted for publication), the present study provides the first empirical evidence, to our knowledge, that certain attachment orientations are related to specific EI abilities assessed with the recently developed measure (MSCEIT, Mayer et al., 2002). Furthermore, by employing a sample of participants from a wide age range it was possible to establish predictive validity of

Perception 2

0.04

2

b

R Step 1 Secure Fearful Preoccupied Dismissing

Facilitation b

R

0.05

0.04 )0.07 )0.15 )0.04

NB: N ¼ 164–237. p < 0:05,

p < 0:01,

Understanding 2

0.16 0.18 0.07 )0.07 0.02

b

R

p < 0:001.

Management 2

R

b

0.05 0.22 )0.01 )0.08 0.30

Area 1 2

R

Area 2 b

0.05 0.17 0.08 0.01 0.09

2

b

R

0.12 0.10 )0.03 )0.16 0.03

EI total

R2 0.09

0.24 0.01 0.01 0.23

b

0.24 )0.03 )0.05 0.15


Table 5 Multiple regressions of EI branches and areas on attachment orientations

139

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MSCEIT to do with attachment orientations and also to test for age differences in attachment and EI. In line with the hypotheses, secure attachment was consistently positively related to three out of four EI branches (facilitation, understanding and management), the strategic area and total EI scores. Certain tasks were particularly predictive of the secure attachment orientation (facilitation, blends and emotion management in relationships). These results were generally representative in both males and females and did not show any interactions with age. As expected, preoccupied attachment orientation was negatively associated with emotional intelligence abilities but this result achieved significance only for the first branch (perception abilities and especially the pictures task). The results concerning fearful-avoidant attachment and EI abilities were in line with expectations but not at statistically significant levels. Maybe one of the most interesting findings of the present study was the strong, positive relationship between dismissing-avoidant attachment and emotion understanding in both males and females and for both changes and blends tasks. At first sight this finding seems to go against observations from research using the tripartite model that avoidants are generally emotionally defensive (Fuendeling, 1998). Developmental theory also sees avoidance as a result of emotional socialisation in environments where affective experiences are undervalued and consciously denied (Main, 1991). However, more recent studies using the four-type model have begun to uncover differences in the emotional defences of dismissing and fearful-avoidant persons. For example, compared to fearful-avoidants, dismissing-avoidant persons seem to handle emotions more effectively in order to promote personal wellbeing (Fraley & Shaver, 1997; Fraley et al., 2000). Also, Searle and Meara (1999) found that secure and dismissing-avoidant participants experienced lower levels of emotional intensity than preoccupied and fearful persons. Less intense affective experience of emotion may enhance cognitive processes of understanding emotions (e.g. categorising, labelling, etc.), a hypothesis in line with the information processing basis of EI (Mayer & Salovey, 1997). Finally, it is noteworthy that both in ours, and Searle and MearaÕs (1999) studies the emotional outcomes (EI, emotion intensity) were associated primarily with the positive selfmodel (secure and dismissing orientations) which corresponds to the lower end of the anxiety dimension in terms of the contemporary two-dimensional model of adult attachment organisation. This line of thought is also in keeping with CrittendenÕs (1998) developmental-information processing model. From this perspective, dismissing-avoidant persons are socialised in relationships where there is a predictable punishment of affective signals that leads them to utilise cognitive routes of understanding emotional exchanges in favour of affective routes. Future research should investigate differences in the processing of emotion information (e.g. cognitive vs. affective routes) between the avoidant attachment orientations. There are also important implications in the area of clinical practice with the possibility that some types of psychotherapy (e.g. RET) might be more suitable for participants with certain types of insecure attachment orientations than others. For example, dismissing avoidant persons might be more amenable to structured, cognitive-oriented restructuring of emotions whereas fearfulavoidants might be more responsive to behaviourally-oriented manipulation of affect. Another aspect of this work was the exploration of possible attachment and emotion links at different life-stages. Generally, the results support the idea that secure and insecure attachment orientations consistently affect peoplesÕ abilities across the life stages and that emotional abilities


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improve with age (Carstensen et al., 2000; Mayer et al., 2000). Moreover, the present study provided some evidence that emotional abilities maybe differentially related to certain insecure attachment orientations across the life course. Fearful-avoidant attachment was negatively related to emotion perception abilities as a function of age. Although a limited effect, the younger, fearful personsÕ improved emotional perception is consistent with evidence from an experimental study that fearful college students were more vigilant in the perception of happy and angry facial expressions than preoccupied or dismissing-avoidants (Niedenthal, Brauer, Robin, & Innes-Ker, 2002). Further analyses of the current data revealed that the age by fearful attachment interaction effect was particularly strong for the pictures sub-scale and especially attributions of anger and happiness (as in Niedenthal et al., 2002, where younger fearful individuals were particularly sensitive in anchoring anger to environmental stimuli). Future research should aim to replicate this finding and also to explore the underlying processes (e.g. motivation, attention, etc.). Since measurement of attachment orientations was not in terms of exclusive types or categories, but rather in terms of interrelated dimensions (orientations), further research should also test whether the use of exclusive types predicts emotional differences. 4.1. Age and gender differences in EI The results from this study provide further confirmation of the developmental criterion of emotional abilities (e.g. Mayer et al., 2000) as older individuals scored higher on most of the EI components (facilitation, understanding and management branches). However, to fully test the life cycle of adult emotionality, research into emotional intelligence in older age is necessary. The findings regarding femalesÕ superiority solely in the perception of emotion and the experiential branch are in keeping with a long and inconclusive tradition of gender differences in nonverbal abilities (e.g. Hall, 1987). However, the fact that there were no significant differences in the other aspects of EI gives credence to the MSCEIT test in that it seems to minimise suggestibility effects (i.e. usually the observed gender differences are due to femalesÕ expressivity and reporting compliance). 4.2. Limitations As with all correlational work one important caveat is that no causal inferences can be made on the basis of the analyses presented in this study between attachment and emotional intelligence. In fact, it is likely that both constructs are influenced by the same emotion regulation processes that infuse cognitive with affective biases. A further limitation concerns the employment of a more reliable measure of adult attachment. In this study, the relationship questionnaire was chosen in order to address questions involving BartholomewÕs typology. However, recently developed dimensional scales (e.g. Fraley et al., 2000) can be used so that differences in the four attachment types can be examined. 4.3. Future directions The results of the current study point to a number of interesting next steps. Firstly, future research should distinguish between cognitive and affective oriented emotional abilities across the

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life stages. Clinical research could test whether therapeutic interventions that target the cognitive or emotional aspect of adult attachment differentially could be more effective for each insecure style. In terms of methodology and operationalisation of emotional intelligence abilities, future research using self-report methods could look closer at dynamic aspects of emotional intelligence abilities (emotion differentiation and emotion regulation) as suggested by emerging themes of emotion research (e.g. emotion differentiation, Feldman-Barrett & Gross, 2001). The interplay of cognitive and affective components of attachment orientations can be a fruitful avenue of research also from the perspective of social-cognitive neuroscience (Oshner & Lieberman, 2001). The interaction of cognitive and affective components of attachment orientations is an area in which more research is needed also within relational contexts (Collins, 1996). Secure and insecure attachment orientations play a central role in empathic accuracy in relationships (Simpson, Ickes, & Grich, 1999) and it is very likely that differences in emotional intelligence abilities influence other aspects of the proximal level of interaction in close relationships (Fincham, 1995). For instance, there is recent evidence that emotion management abilities predict satisfaction with relationships above personality differences (Lopes, Salovey, & Straus, 2003) and further work could compare older, happily married couples with less well-adjusted ones. Finally, the emotional abilities of successful and unsuccessful relationships across the life-span (be it from an attachment perspective or not) should be the object of future research as there is very limited information of a longitudinal nature.

5. Conclusion The study provided evidence for individual differences in emotional intelligence abilities in terms of attachment orientations and provided a validation for the new emotional intelligence construct. The results highlighted differences between the avoidant attachment orientations and age stage differences. These results are particularly convincing given the different methods employed to measure EI and attachment orientations (ability and self-report measures).

Acknowledgements The author would like to thank Victoria Mitchell and Jean Yeadon for their assistance with data collection and Dr. Youngmee Kim and Paulo Lopes for their constructive comments on earlier drafts of this paper. References Aiken, L. S., & West, S. G. (1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Baldwin, M. W., Keelan, J. P. R., Fehr, B., Enns, V., & Koh-Rangarajoo, E. (1996). Social-cognitive conceptualization of attachment working models: availability and accessibility effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 94–109.


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