Investigating the relationship between adult attachment style, emotion regulation strategies, and academic achievement.

• Introduction

It is without a doubt that development in adulthood is largely impacted by early experiences that an individual had during their childhood. One aspect about adulthood development is the formation of relationships which primarily stems from attachment between one person and another. To a great extent, the nature and characteristic of these attachments are greatly determined by the initial characteristic bond made between a mother and a child. There exist comprehensive studies which show how, during the preliminary moments of life, an infant develops a rhythmical link to the mother, such that the voice and reactions of both the mother and child become synchronized (Malekpour, 2007). The mother-child bond makes up the early emotional experiences which mould the structural growth patterns that determine a developing individual’s expanding capacities of functional growth. The mother-child attachment dictates one’s personal identity.

To create meaning of these early experiences and their effect on adult development, attachment theories have been established. More specifically, while drawing on the concepts from cybernetics, ethology, development psychology, information processing, and psychoanalysis, John Bowlby, together with Mary Ainsworth, came up with the fundamentals of the attachment theory (Bretherton, 1992). Bowlby revolutionized the perception towards the mother-child bond and how it is disrupted through bereavement, deprivation, and separation. Ainsworth developed an innovative methodology by carrying out empirical tests on Bowlby’s concepts, eventually expanding the theory to show a mother’s sensitivity to signals from the child and its impact in developing attachment patterns between the child and mother (Bretherton, 1992).

Bowlby’s attachment theory holds that a child develops generalized beliefs and expectations about themselves, the world and their relationships according to early experience with their primary caregivers (Mikulincer, Shaver, & Pereg, 2003). The formed beliefs and expectations are regarded as “working models,” which is one of the main assumptions of the attachment theory in adults. The working models are the mental representations that are constructed by people concerning themselves and their significant others. 20 years onward, the attachment theory has become a crucial part of theoretical frameworks for studying interpersonal relationships, personality development and emotional regulation (Fraley, Hefferman, Vicary, & Brumbaugh, 2011).

In the field of social-personality, researchers have theorized working models for attachment according to traits in contextual relationships with friends, romantic partners, and parents. One of Bowlby’s arguments was that, born with a behavioural repertoire, infants target to find and maintain closeness to the supportive primary caregivers. The closeness seeking trait, in Bowlby’s point of view, is an innate emotion regulation device which was designed to keep a person away from psychological and physical threats as well as alleviate stress. By accomplishing emotion-regulation functions successfully, the feeling of attachment security grows such that the child feels as though the world is safe and they can rely on others to acquire protection. This causes children to explore their environment with comfort and engaging with other people effectively as they will have developed attachment security (Mikulincer, Shaver, & Pereg, 2003). Adults too have proximity seeking behaviours, which enhance emotion regulation by maintaining a relationship partner. Through proximity behaviours, adults tend to associate with another person who is available when they anticipate a noxious event. Adults also acquire assistance from other people during and after going through some stressful event (Mikulincer, Shaver, & Pereg, 2003, p. 82).

Pedagogical studies have also shown interest in the theoretical frameworks of attachment, by trying to understand the way relationships are developed, factors which influence them, how they are expressed and the outcomes they are likely to bring about in one’s life. The attachment theory has become pivotal towards understanding the processes of motivation which result in non-identification, non-collaboration, and school failure (de Castro & Pereira, 2019). Understanding the working of attachment among children offers great clarity on the behavioural implications of students when they are under social and emotional strain. This knowledge helps teachers and other actors in the field of education to integrate the attachment theory in teaching strategies. While at the stage of infancy, children become attached to their primary caregivers, and they can relay their requests more effectively to these caregivers in healthy settings. With time, children internalize the ideals and behaviours of the caregivers together with other people that they bond with (Corner, 2001). It is through these primary attachments that students eventually acquire moral, physical, emotive, cognitive, and moral competencies.

• The Concept of Attachment

An attachment relationship is regarded as the deep emotional connection existing between a child and a significant attachment figure, where both parties seek an affect which adds to emotional and physical closeness so as to promote necessary development that is continuous in life. This section seeks to offer an in-depth exploration of the attachment concept, by looking into Bowlby’s perspective of attachment, defining different styles of attachment, adult attachment, emotion regulation, and academic achievement.

• Bowlby’s Perspective of Attachment

According to John Bowlby, attachment is used to define the emotional bond which is persistent between two people. Attachment is a system which has evolved with humanity as it was crucial in promoting survival. Due to its evolutionary nature, it has four distinct features (Rietzschel, 2012). First, it involves close proximity to an attachment figure. An attachment figure can be a primary caregiver, a parent, or anyone with whom an individual wants to maintain close contact with. When the need to maintain proximity is disrupted, such as through involuntary separation (like death), a distressful experience follows, and, in certain cases, protests can be done. The second distinct feature of attachment is the consideration of an attachment figure as a ‘safe haven’ who provides support, protection, and comfort at the moments of distress (Rietzschel, 2012). The third distinct feature is the dependence of an attachment figure as a ‘safe base’ where from a person can explore the world freely. As aforementioned, the mother-child bond is the earliest kind of attachment bond. The quality of this primal bond and early interactions causes infants to develop a one-of-a-kind set of mental representations or expectations of themselves and other people in their attachment relationships. The responsiveness of the caregivers towards the distresses of the infant is the fourth distinct feature of attachment, which is crucial in determining their mental representations (Rietzschel, 2012).

• Attachment Styles

Derived from Bowlby’s attachment theory, an attachment style refers to an individuals’ unique ways of relating during intimate caregiving and when receiving relationships, usually with attachment figures like romantic partners, children, and parents, among others. Attachment style can also be regarded as a theory explaining a person’s confidence in the attachment figure’s availability, using them as a secure foundation from which they can explore the world when they are not in distress, and using them as a safe haven from where they can acquire comfort, protection and support in moments of distress (Levy, Ellison, Scott, & Bernecker, 2011). Exploring the world is not only restricted to the physical world alone, but also relating with other people and providing a reflection of their own intrinsic experience.

The quality of attachment relationships was tested by Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters and Wall (1978), in an experimental process known as ‘Strange Situation.’ The test involved a cycle of short separation and reunion with a primary caregiver. Three attachment patterns were observed from infant responses. These patterns are insecure avoidant, insecure anxious ambivalent, and secure. In the secure attachment style, the infants were able to use the attachment figure as the secure base for their exploration. Separation from the primary caregiver caused distress, but their return easily comforted them.

In the insecure avoidant attachment style, little reference to the caregiver was done while infants explored their environment. Separation resulted in minimal distress and upon reunion, the infant ignored or avoided the caregiver. This led to the conclusion that attachment behaviours were inhibited through learning due to their lack of consistency in eliciting effective care from an attachment figure. Infants who had an anxious ambivalent attachment style exhibited minimal exploration. Separations brought to them high levels of distress and reunions hardly soothed them (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978). Thus, they displayed an ambivalent mix of anger and clinging behaviour. The primary caregivers for had inconsistent responses and these infants learned to extend their negative affect so that their needs would be met.

• Adult Attachment

One of the central goals of Bowlby’s development of the attachment theory was to preserve Freud’s genuine knowledge concerning people close relationships and their development. Three insights can be deduced from the attachment theory (Waters, Merrick, Treboux, Crowell, & Albersheim, 2000). First, infancy life has complex emotional, social and cognitive aspects. Second, the nature of close relationships in infancy has underlying similarities with close relationships in adulthood. Third, one’s early experience is of great significance. Bowlby proposed that a person’s internal working models and those of others presented a template for their subsequent relationships through guiding their cognitive behaviour and processes consistent with the expectations of an individual.

There are three major patterns of adult attachment according to Mary Main and her colleagues’ Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). They are enmeshed/preoccupied, secure/autonomous, and dismissing (an avoidant attachment style) and they are a reflection of the attachment styles determined by Ainsworth. Hazan & Shaver (1987) conceptualized adult romantic love as a form of attachment process that has the same characteristic features of infant-caregiver attachment relationships. The authors developed a model for individual differences in the romantic adult relationships that has three categories – avoidant, anxious ambivalent, and secure – which are analogous to Ainsworth’s attachment patterns. Bartholomew (1990) criticized Hazen & Shaver (1987), feeling that their model was inadequate by distinguishing between two types of avoidance that are theoretically distinct, which are dismissing avoidance and fearful-avoidance. Therefore, a model with four categories was developed resulting from a combination of the negative and positive mental representations of others and the self.

Adolescent attachment and adult romantic attachment, together with the strategies for emotion regulation have an impact on the adult symptoms of mental health. A person’s internal mental representations of early attachment relationships affect their vulnerability and resilience to life events which are stressful, which eventually affects their mental health and well-being. For example, insecure model of adult attachment is related to rigid self-perceptions as well as distorted and negative expectations and views of other people. In cognitive models which are distorted, an adult is likely to experience and view difficult events more negatively by acquiring feelings of disappointment, helplessness, jealousy and sadness.

In a study using the experiences in close relationships- revised (ECR-R) and Beck Anxiety Inventory, Nielsen et al. (2017), discovered that emotion regulation has a mediating role between attachment symptoms and attachment dimensions of anxiety and avoidance. Particularly, the findings of the study show that attachment anxiety, and not insecure attachment, is more relevant to the formation of anxiety disorders (Nielsen, et al., 2017).

• Emotion Regulation

The regulation of emotions is a prerequisite for adaptive functioning. A person needs to regulate the emotions, as well as regulate the way they experience and exude their emotions they have so that they can get along with other people well enough (Gross, 1998). According to Gross (1998), emotion regulation is a field of study which is concerned with the way individuals influence their emotions, the moment they have them and the way they experience and show them. Gross (2002) came up with a process model of emotion regulation which suggests that different ways of regulating emotions bring about different consequences. The basic proposition of this model is that strategies for emotion regulation differ according to when they create a primary impact in the process of emotion generation.

There are two distinct emotion regulation strategies. The strategies are response- and antecedent-focused. The response-focused strategy is used to refer to the things we do once an emotion once an emotion is underway and after the tendencies of response are generated. For example, a response-focused strategy can be identified when a person tries to hide their anxiety on the first day, they leave their child in kindergarten. Antecedent-focused strategy refers to the things which a person does before an emotion gets into full activation such that behaviour and peripheral physiological response changes. For example, an antecedent-focused strategy can be seen by the kind of perception a person takes prior to an interview, by considering it as a learning opportunity instead of a test where they would either pass or fail (Gross, 2002).

Tello (2015) identifies expressive suppression as another emotion regulation strategy which involves a person inhibiting behaviour which is emotion-expressive. The use of expressive suppression is believed to have negative outcomes. Although, cultural beliefs have a confounding effect on the negative consequences. For example, among European Americans, research shows that the use of expressive suppression causes a variety of adverse cognitive and emotional outcomes (Tello, 2015). By inhibiting the emotional expression of an emotional response, facial expressivity, heart rate and subjective feelings of positive emotions are reduced as well. According to Gross (1998), expressive suppression reduces individual experience of certain emotions, like amusement and pride, and this may not work for other emotions, like disgust and sadness.

To illustrate that suppression can be distinguished from reappraisal, Gross (1998) conducted a study by showing participants a film where an arm was being amputated with the goal of eliciting disgust. Three random conditions were assigned to the participants. In the first condition, the participants were requested to think about what they were seeing on the film in a manner that they were not feeling anything (reappraisal). In the second condition, the participants were requested to conceal their emotions (suppression). In the third condition, the participants were asked watch the film in simple manner (control).

Lazarus & Opron (1996) held that processes involving reappraisal could influence emotional response. Participants who used expressive suppression when viewing something disgusting or sad pictures and films reported to experience more negative emotions and increased sympathetic nervous system activation, compared to those who used reappraisal (Butler et al., 2003; Gross, 1998; Gross & Levenson, 1997). According to Gross (2002) cognitive reappraisal has a positive effect of decreasing negative emotional experience and the expression of negative behaviour expression without any much psychological activation. In addition, there is a negative effect tied to expressive suppression as it decreases the likelihood of experiencing the positive emotion.

In this study, I looked at attachment style and its relationship to emotion regulation, to confirm the existing literature that confirm the link between the former and the latter, while also considering the impact of both of them on academic achievement. This will provide the lead in to the other dependent variable of academic achievement. The novel aspect of the study is the inclusion of all the three variables, which are attachment style, emotion regulation and academic achievement.

• Academic Achievement

Academic achievement or academic performance has been an issue of attention and research for a very long time. Many studies have either focused specifically on academic performance per se or academic performance in relation to other factors. Much of this research aimed to determine factors that improve academic performance, thus resulting in many researchers engaging in studies on academic performance and its relationship with other demographic and psychological features. By definition, academic achievement refers to the extent to which a person has acquired the long- or short-term goals that have been set by academic institutions, like schools and universities. Since academic achievement can be conceptualized, it can be measured in different ways. Although, standardized performance scores in examination tests, commonly known ‘grades’ make up the commonly popular indicator of a person’s ability to grasp knowledge or skills on a specific subject or domain. Academic achievement is important because it is a marker of intellectual education. This makes it a prerequisite for prosperity as an individual and a society (Spinath, 2012). On an individual level, academic achievement determines an individual’s ability to pursue higher education.  Students who have completed their compulsory secondary education and have achieved the general certificate of general education (GCSE) must attain five GCSEs at grades A*- C to gain entry to study for the general certification of education advanced level (A-Level) (Kapur, 2018).  Similarly, students applying to university after completing their A-Levels must meet course specific grade requirements to be offered entrance (Pearson, 2017).

Through this access to higher education, AA influences an individual’s vocational career. Higher academic achievement therefore not only influences an individual’s ability to attend university and course of study but ultimately the vocational career an individual is able to pursue. Academic achievement is also linked with employability, higher wages and stable employment. For example, from an intrinsic perspective, a person’s level of academic achievement determines their university commitment and self-perceived employability. While organizations under go changes, they are less likely to experience job insecurity after all. Their initial motivation of acquire high academic performance will always cause them to hold the belief that their effort will eventually cause them to land on the ‘right job’ instead of one which is considered as secure. Academic achievement is also important for confidence and self-esteem. Self-esteem also has an impact on academic achievement, but for the purpose of this study, focus will be on the magnitude from the latter to the former. One of the specific ways (building blocks) a person acquires self-esteem is through their competence. Competence is a building block of self-esteem where a person desires to have mastery and the ability to succeed fully in a specific area of life. A person who experiences chromic failure, especially in the academic field, is likely to have low self-esteem in their life (Urich, 2010). Academic achievement is also important at the societal and economic level such that it is a harbinger of prosperity and wealth amassing in a nation. There is also a positive link between the level of a society’s academic achievement and positive socio-economic development.

Therefore, engaging in research concerning academic achievement is of great significance. The significance comes in the form of creating more competition and work. In the present day, universities are even under more pressure to provide the job market with graduates who are equipped with top-notch knowledge and skills that employees need. Many degree programmes have structurally designed curricula which adamantly prepare students for the employment market (Lowden, Elliot, & Lewin, 2011). Many people are targeting to acquire high achievements in the university, largely because, the acquisition of high education qualifications is a significant part in social mobility (Campbell, Chuang, Liao, & Zhou, 2017).  Also, there is an increasing number of people who are pursuing postgraduate qualifications and this is largely due to the increased perception that the master’s degree is the like the ‘bachelor’s degree of the new age,’ especially for younger workers that target to be outstanding in a highly competitive workforce.

• The Relationship Between Attachment Styles and Academic Achievement
  • Preschool Children

There are different parenting styles used in raising children. These parental styles affect a child’s style of attachment. In the attachment relationships, both the child and the adult exhibit certain behaviours. During the early stages of development, a child acquires early childhood education. Ekeh (2012) carried out a study that determines the effect of children attachment styles to their parents on their social competence and academic achievement. The study found that children with secure attachment style had the highest ratings in academic achievement, followed by anxious/resistant, anxious/avoidant, and disorganized styles of attachment. One reason for this is that children who experience secure attachment tend to be more goal oriented and independent (Ekeh, 2012). Adolescents face various challenges before the get to know themselves. According to a study by Majimbo (2017), in a secure attachment relationship between an adolescent and a parent, the adolescent will perform better at executing tasks and will have more resilience in school.

• School-Age Children

Also, as children grow up, they are faced with various transitions in their life course. These transitions initialize when the child leaves their parent’s home to engage in extended socialization. By 18 months of age, infants with secure attachment tend to be cooperative, prepared and enthusiastic about upcoming social interactions, compared to toddlers who are either avoidant or ambivalent. The more a child progresses in school, the less they depend on support from their parents and more depend on their teacher. This shift in attachment helps the child cope as they become more independent from their parents. Also, as they grow, children acquire attachment styles which are unique and independent as they affect how one goes through puberty. Children who experience attachment anxiety were found more likely to engage in academic cheating and to help their colleagues in class as a means of acquiring peer approval (Kurland & Siegel, 2013).

What is becoming more apparent is that academic achievement is determined by the type of security of an attachment and the reason for this is that children explore and learn from the environment in different ways which also depends on their styles of attachment toddlers (Frankel & Bates, 1990). The effect for this begins on childhood for pre-academic skills. Scure attachment style is related to better participation, less insecurity concerning the self, and high participation in class and higher grade-point average (GPA) (Jacobsen & Hoffman, 1997). Attachment to mother predicted scholastic skill, GPA and scholastic attitude among Israeli sixth graders, above and beyond the effects of IQ and self-esteem. This effect occurred for both concurrent attachments, as well as for attachment measures 10 years earlier in infancy (Aviezer et al, 2002).

Jacobsen & Hoffman (1997) suggest that this occurs because children with secure representations of attachment are more prone to approach new experiences with confidence and trust, versus children with insecure attachment representations who will lack the confidence that they will be responded to in a sensitive manner.

• Attachment Style and Academic Achievement in Older Children and Adults

In a study by Pashaei (2014), the relationship between attachment styles and academic performance of secondary school students was tested. The findings of the study was that there is a positive correlation between secure attachment styles and academic performance of students; and increasing of student’s scores on the scale of secure attachment leads to increase of academic performance. There is also a relationship between insecure attachment style and academic performance. Negative coefficients obtained in this study have shown that there is a negative relationship between insecure attachment style and academic performance (Pashaei, 2014). Higher scores on the insecure attachment scale lead to decrease scores of the students’ academic.

Larose, Bernier and Tarabulsy (2005) examined the role of attachment in students’ learning dispositions and academic performance during the transition to college. The participants completed the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) at the end of their high school career, and again after the first semester of college. The participants learning dispositions were measured with a 50-item questionnaire that examines their beliefs, emotional reactions, and behaviors in regard to learning, and their academic performance was measured based on grades obtained and weighted from both high school averages and a standardized general mean from the first three semesters of college (Sager, 2015). The findings revealed that the learning dispositions of individuals with a secure attachment either improved or remained the same, whereas insecurely attached students’ learning dispositions appeared to decline during the transition to college. Furthermore, they found that a dismissive attachment orientation in particular is associated with lower grades and an overall poorer academic performance in college performance.

Past research indicates that secure attachments result in higher achievement among four-year college students. Also, a secure attachment in adults results in stress reduction amd better emotional, physical and cognitive development (Petroff, 2008). In a study on 60 undergraduates from a public university in the northwest United States, Cortesi (2014) examined the relationship between adolescent attachment style and academic performance, to develop more targeted interventions within the school system and recorded the student’s approach and avoidance communal (closeness), un-communal (distance), agentic (assertion), and un-agentic (submission) goals as indicators of attachment. The results showed correlation between attachment style and self-reported grades in school with some demographic factors having an influence. There was evidence to suggests that early recognition of an individual’s attachment style and related behavioural disposition may facilitate prevention and/or intervention for maladaptive behaviour patterns. Such findings have acted as catalysts for this research which is comparatively more holistic due to the multiplicity of variables involved in trying to determine factors impacting on academic performance among college students.

• The Relationship between Emotion Regulation and Academic Achievement

The ideology of emotion regulation playing a significant role in the academic success of an individual is quickly acquiring support both empirically and theoretically. There is ample research showing that a child’s inability to regulate their emotions affects their academic achievement. According to Ensmiger & Slusarick, (1992), children also risk ending up as school dropouts. This was also the case among children in secondary school such that they had a hard time in regulating their emotions, had a lower GPA; they acquired low scores on achievement exams and thought of themselves as being less competent in terms of their studies.

Gumora (1999) investigated the connection between emotional regulation and academic achievement. The Negative Academic Affect Scale was used to determine the emotional regulation among 103 young adolescents. Results showed that students who had greater difficulty managing negative academic affect had a lower GPA and scored lower on the tests of cognitive ability, had lower perception on academic competence, and had less perseverance on tasks.

In a study by Leroy et al. (2014), temptation was found to be a significant barrier to attaining academic achievement. In their research, two studies were used to find ways of overcoming temptation and it was found that cognitive appraisal was among them. In particular, cognitive appraisal modifies the task, resulting in task appraisal while in turn causes temptation appraisal (Leroy, Gregiore, Magen, Gross, & Mikolajczak, 2012). Gross (2002), and Dillon et al. (2007) contend that cognitive reappraisal can also enhance memory performance, while expressive suppression can have the opposite effect.

Rice, Levine and Pizarro (2007) looked into the outcomes of sadness and the instructions used in the regulation of sadness on the educational material memory for children. The findings showed that children who acquired instructions to avoid engaging in their feelings of sadness were able to remember more information about the educational film compared to children who acquired instructions which directed their focus to their sad feelings, and children who were not given any emotion regulation instructions (Rice, Levine, & Pizarro, 2007). This shows that there are defined benefits of the strategies of emotional disengagement, like reappraisal, for the educational memory of children in school.

Using an ERQ to investigate the relationship between expressive suppression, cognitive reappraisal, and academic performance, Hafiz (2015) reveals that there is a substantial relationship between academic performance and expressive suppression, and not with cognitive reappraisal. Also, the regression model used showed that both cognitive reappraisal and emotion regulation did not determine the academic performance of the students (Hafiz, 2015).

• Less Specific Impacts of Emotion Regulation on Academic Achievement

Positive reappraisal, such as the reappraisal of a situation on a positive direction, is linked with high academic self-efficacy after the experience of a perceived failure in academics (Hanley, Palejwala, Hanley, Canto, & Garland, 2015). A study by Jamieson, Peters, Greenwood & Altosec (2016), showed that when stress is reappraised, it results in better performance in exams and brought about less anxiety in an evaluation experience compared to those who were requested to ignore their stress. Furthermore, college students are less likely to have problems with alcohol consumption when reappraisal is done (Norberg et al., 2016). More problems with consumption of alcohol are experienced when suppression is used. When entering into the college setting, the general use of suppression is associated with less perceived social support, social satisfaction and closeness with other students. This is an indication that, in general, the use of suppression has an adverse effect on proper functioning in college, especially in social circumstances like staying with roommates, engaging in group projects, peer interactions and reaching academic goals.

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