The role of attachment in responses to victims of life crises

Attachment effects on affect, cognitions, and behavior during an interactio n with a confederate who purportedly had cancer and whose attachment orient ation had been manipulated in a prior context were examined among 241 parti cipants. Results supported theoretically derived predictions: Participant a nxious attachment predicted anxiety, participant avoidant attachment predic ted supportiveness, and participant avoidant attachment interacted with con federate avoidant attachment to predict rejection. Results suggest (a) the importance of attachment in predicting inter-personal responses in a nonrom antic stressful context, (b) that anxious attachment is an important predic tor of anxiety in a situation with implicit support demands, (c) that avoid ant attachment is a potentially important predictor of the likelihood of su pportive responses to victims, and (d) that attachment orientation can be s uccessfully manipulated in experimental studies of attachment.