Openness in processing social information among attachment types

Previous empirical and theoretical work suggests differences among attachme nt types with regard to their openness in perceiving and organizing social information. To examine these hypothesized differences, participants were g iven two sets of information characterizing the same target person, one set depicting an insecurely attached person, the other portraying a securely a ttached person. Proposed differences in openness to incorporating new infor mation, differentiation in cognitive representations of others, and recall were assessed. As hypothesized, avoidant individuals were less open to new information than were secure subjects, and they differentiated their repres entations less than did both secure and anxious-ambivalent individuals. Mor eover, as expected, there were no significant differences between secure an d anxious-ambivalent individuals on the dimensions of openness and differen tiation. However, avoidant individuals did not evidence poorer recall of th e stimulus material. Theoretical and clinical implications of avoidant indi viduals' relatively more rigid, simplistic models of others are explored.