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(https://www.psypost.org/secure-attachment-linked-to-lower-ptsd-symptoms-in-children-study-finds/) Secure attachment linked to lower PTSD symptoms in children, study finds
Dec 5th 2024, 08:00

A meta-analysis of 30 research studies examining children with traumatic experiences found that securely attached children tended to exhibit less severe posttraumatic stress symptoms after experiencing a traumatic event. In contrast, insecure attachment was associated with more severe posttraumatic stress symptoms. The research was published in (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/development-and-psychopathology/article/relationship-between-attachment-and-posttraumatic-stress-in-children-and-adolescents-a-metaanalytic-review/28C0AAA3AF4115B8B3CEE4C33AFAE8D3) Development and Psychopathology.
Many children and adolescents experience traumatic events. Some witness severe domestic violence or endure abuse, while others survive war, natural disasters, or serious accidents. A recent meta-analysis found that approximately 16% of children exposed to traumatic events subsequently develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD is a mental health condition triggered by experiencing or witnessing a traumatic event, characterized by symptoms such as intrusive memories, hyperarousal, avoidance behaviors, and negative changes in mood or cognition.
However, experiencing a traumatic event alone is not sufficient to cause PTSD or its symptoms. Various factors increase the risk of developing the disorder, while others serve as protective factors that reduce this risk. For example, low social support, social withdrawal, and intense fear experienced during the traumatic event increase the likelihood of developing PTSD symptoms. Conversely, a strong emotional connection with a caregiver—i.e., secure attachment—can enhance a child’s resilience and serve as a protective factor against the development of psychopathology.
Study author Toby Cushing and his colleagues sought to better understand the relationship between emotional attachment style and posttraumatic stress symptoms in children and adolescents. They also investigated whether this relationship differs between children who have experienced maltreatment and those who have experienced other types of traumatic events. The researchers hypothesized that a secure emotional attachment style would be associated with lower posttraumatic stress symptoms.
Attachment styles are patterns of emotional bonding and relationship behavior formed in early childhood. The four main attachment styles are:

Secure attachment, characterized by trust and comfort in relationships.
Anxious attachment, marked by fear of abandonment and clinginess.
Avoidant attachment, involving emotional distance and difficulty with intimacy.
Disorganized attachment, which combines fear and confusion in relationships due to inconsistent caregiving.

The last three are collectively referred to as insecure attachment styles. These styles arise from early interactions with caregivers and shape how individuals perceive and respond to emotional connections. Secure attachment fosters healthy relationships, while insecure styles can lead to challenges in emotional regulation and interpersonal interactions.
The study’s authors conducted a meta-analysis of published research focused on attachment and posttraumatic stress symptoms in children and adolescents. They conducted an extensive search of scientific publication databases, yielding nearly 3,000 records.
After reviewing these records, they identified 30 studies that contained the necessary data for their meta-analysis. The number of participants in these studies ranged from 19 to 3,232, totaling 10,431 participants. The mean age of participants ranged from 33 months to 18 years, with an average age of 13 years. On average, 51% of participants were girls. The nature of trauma varied, including maltreatment (9 studies), war trauma (7 studies), and natural disasters (4 studies). Four studies did not specify the type of trauma participants experienced.
The overall results showed that securely attached children tended to have fewer posttraumatic stress symptoms. However, the strength of this association varied considerably between studies. Insecure attachment styles, both collectively and when considered individually, were associated with more severe posttraumatic stress symptoms.
“The results of these meta-analyses indicate that attachment orientation during childhood and adolescence has a small but significant association with PTSS [posttraumatic stress symptoms]. Secure attachment is associated with lower PTSS following a traumatic event and insecure and avoidant attachment is associated with increased PTSS following a traumatic event, but the evidence base is still quite limited,” the study authors concluded.
The study provides insights into the link between childhood attachment and responses to trauma. However, it is important to note the significant variability between the studies included in the meta-analysis regarding the strength of the association between attachment and posttraumatic stress symptoms. Additionally, studies of this nature are often conducted on survivors of traumatic events who are more accessible to researchers. As a result, the findings may not be fully representative of the general population.
The paper, “(https://doi.org/10.1017/S0954579423000299) The relationship between attachment and posttraumatic stress in children and adolescents: A meta-analytic review,” was authored by Toby Cushing, Sarah Robertson, Julia Mannes, Nicole Marshall, Mark James Carey, Robbie Duschinsky, and Richard Meiser-Stedman.

(https://www.psypost.org/scientists-sheds-light-on-how-our-brains-create-mental-chapters-with-new-event-segmentation-study/) Scientists sheds light on how our brains create mental “chapters” with new event segmentation study
Dec 5th 2024, 06:00

A new study published in (https://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(24)01224-7) Current Biology sheds light on how the brain divides the continuous flow of information in our daily lives into discrete, meaningful events. The findings reveal that these divisions—similar to starting a new chapter in a book—aren’t solely prompted by changes in our surroundings. Instead, they can be influenced by internal scripts based on past experiences and current goals. This active process of segmentation reflects how the brain prioritizes information to fit what matters most to us at any given moment.
Scientists have long been intrigued by how we process the endless stream of events in our daily lives and make sense of them as distinct moments. This segmentation process is essential for understanding the world, updating mental models, and forming lasting memories. But what prompts the brain to mark the boundary between one event and the next?
One possibility is that physical changes in the environment, like moving from an outdoor space into a building, signal the start of a new “chapter.” Another hypothesis suggests that these boundaries are shaped by internal “scripts”—mental templates formed through experience. These scripts allow the brain to filter and prioritize information based on what aligns with current objectives. For example, when dining at a restaurant, an experienced diner might focus on events such as ordering food and its arrival, while ignoring other background changes.
The researchers sought to test whether the brain actively constructs these boundaries by prioritizing internal scripts over environmental cues.
“We wanted to see how the brain processed realistic situations, with complex events that unfolded over multiple minutes,” said study author Chris Baldassano, an associate professor of psychology at Columbia University and director of the (https://www.dpmlab.org/index.html) Dynamic Perception and Memory Lab.
“Recent work from my lab and others has found that there are parts of the brain (including a group of regions called the default mode network, the DMN) that usually turn off during a typical neuroscience study in which we flash unrelated pictures or words in a sequence, but that are actually highly engaged when we present people with a meaningful experience like a movie or story. We were hoping to understand what information about the narrative is being tracked in the DMN (and especially in the medial prefrontal cortex), and whether a story is processed differently depending on what you are currently paying attention to.”
To explore this, the researchers designed 16 audio narratives that each combined two overlapping “scripts.” One script was location-based (e.g., a restaurant, airport, grocery store, or lecture hall), while the other focused on social interactions (e.g., a breakup, a marriage proposal, a business deal, or a chance romantic encounter). Each story progressed through four distinct events for each script, interwoven in such a way that the boundaries for one script did not coincide with those of the other. This setup allowed researchers to test how attention to different scripts influenced participants’ perceptions of event boundaries and the corresponding brain activity.
“The stories were created by Alexandra De Soares, the member of my lab who led this study, such that each one was a combination of two ‘scripts’ (i.e. common event sequences),” Baldassano explained. “For example, a story might be about a marriage proposal in a restaurant, and proceed through the stages of eating at a restaurant (being seated, ordering, …) while the events of the proposal are happening at the same time (getting out the ring, proposing, reaction of the partner, …).”
In the first part of the study, conducted in an fMRI scanner, 36 participants listened to these narratives while their brain activity was monitored. Before listening to each story, participants were “primed” by being given a set of questions related to one of the scripts, such as location-specific details (e.g., “What does each person order?” in a restaurant) or social-specific details (e.g., “What is the initial reason stated for the breakup?”). This priming encouraged participants to focus on one script over the other, effectively shaping their mental priorities during the task. While listening to the story, participants’ brain activity was measured, particularly in regions of the DMN, which are known to process abstract and meaningful information.
In the second part of the study, conducted online, over 300 participants listened to the same narratives. However, instead of listening continuously, they heard the stories sentence by sentence and were asked to decide after each sentence whether it marked the beginning of a new event. Like in the fMRI study, participants were primed to focus on either the location script or the social script, or they were not primed at all. After listening, participants completed a memory test where they answered questions about story details, both for the script they were primed to focus on and for the other, unprimed script.
The findings revealed that participants’ segmentation of events and their brain activity patterns were strongly influenced by the script they were primed to prioritize. In the online experiment, participants primed with the location script were more likely to identify new events at moments corresponding to location-based transitions, such as entering a restaurant or moving through security at an airport. Similarly, participants primed with the social script were more attuned to changes in social interactions, though this effect was less pronounced than for location-based events.
“I was surprised to find that telling participants to attend to social-related scripts (such as the marriage proposal) didn’t have much of an effect on how chapters were created (compared to the baseline condition in which participants just listened to the stories without specific instructions),” Baldassano told PsyPost. “Instructing participants to focus on location-related scripts (such as the restaurant) caused much larger changes. In retrospect, this makes some sense: by default, listeners are more likely to focus on the characters and their social interactions, so we only saw big changes when we asked them to approach the story from an unusual perspective.”
Priming also improved memory recall: participants remembered details relevant to their primed script more accurately than those from the unprimed script. This demonstrated that focusing attention on specific types of information not only shaped perception but also enhanced memory encoding.
In the fMRI study, brain activity in the DMN, particularly in the medial prefrontal cortex, aligned with the boundaries relevant to the primed script. For example, when participants were primed to focus on location details, neural transitions in this region coincided with location-based event boundaries in the narratives. These findings suggest that the brain actively constructs event boundaries based on internal priorities rather than passively responding to environmental cues.
“For decades, researchers in cognitive psychology have been interested in how our experiences (which unfold continuously over time) get divided into individual chapters, a cognitive process referred to as ‘event segmentation,'” Baldassano said. “The major new finding in this study is that these chapters don’t just come from the way the story is written. People are not just listening for the author of a story to tell them when a new event is starting; the brain is making active choices about when to start a new chapter that depend on your current frame of mind and goals.”
The study’s design provided a controlled look at how internal scripts influence event segmentation, but it had limitations. The stories used followed the scripts closely, with no major deviations, but real-life experiences are often less predictable.
“In this study, the events of the stories perfectly matched the scripts that people had: for example, in the restaurant stories people always got the food that they ordered,” Baldassano noted. “My lab and others are currently trying to understand what happens when there is a mismatch between your expectations and an actual experience, such as if the waiter threw a glass of water in a guest’s face. What impact does this have on how these experiences would be organized in memory?”
The researchers are also analyzing data on how participants’ perspectives during listening influenced their memory recall. This ongoing work aims to deepen our understanding of how real-world experiences are divided into distinct events and stored in memory.
“We are still working to get a complete picture of the ways that brain regions work together to create memories for realistic, familiar events,” Baldassano said. “Specifically, we are interested in how and when DMN regions like the medial prefrontal cortex send information to and from the long-term memory system in the hippocampus. For example, my lab is currently running studies with patients that have implanted electrodes (as part of a surgical procedure for epilepsy) so that we can directly measure neural activity in the memory system.”
The study, “(https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2024.09.013) Top-down attention shifts behavioral and neural event boundaries in narratives with overlapping event scripts,” was authored by Alexandra De Soares, Tony Kim, Franck Mugisho, Elen Zhu, Allison Lin, Chen Zheng, and Christopher Baldassano.

(https://www.psypost.org/study-examines-link-between-psychopathic-traits-and-emotional-memory/) Study examines link between psychopathic traits and emotional memory
Dec 4th 2024, 12:00

Psychopathic traits were not significantly associated with recall or recognition of emotional or neutral stimuli, according to a recent study published in the journal (https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2024.2357146) Memory.
Psychopathy is characterized by interpersonal, affective, and lifestyle traits, such as a lack of empathy and impulsivity. In this work Rheanna J. Remmel and colleagues clarified how psychopathic traits might influence memory for emotional events, a function typically heightened by emotional valence. Despite existing evidence linking psychopathy to impaired emotional processing, the relationship between psychopathy and emotional memory remains unclear, with previous studies offering conflicting results.
The authors were motivated by findings that individuals with psychopathic traits might show diminished preferential recall for emotional stimuli, which could impact learning from negative experiences and social bonding.
The researchers recruited 82 male inmates from a county jail, ranging in age from 18 to 59 (average age of ~ 29 years). Psychopathic traits were assessed using the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV), which evaluates interpersonal, affective, and behavioral components of psychopathy. Memory abilities were measured using the Wechsler Memory Scale-IV (WMS-IV), which included tasks assessing auditory and visuospatial memory.
The emotional memory task involved presenting participants with 32 images sourced from the International Affective Picture System and similar databases. These images were divided into three categories: positive (e.g., happy family), negative (e.g., a man holding a gun), and neutral (e.g., a cereal bowl). Each image was shown for two seconds, followed by a delay of at least 15 minutes during which participants completed other cognitive tasks.
In the recall phase, participants verbally described as many images as they could remember. A recognition task followed, requiring participants to identify previously viewed images from a randomized mix of the original set and new, similarly valenced images. Attention and effort were controlled using standardized tools like the Symbol Digit Modalities Test and Dot Counting Test.
The researchers found that psychopathic traits were not significantly associated with participants’ ability to recall or recognize emotional stimuli. Across the sample, participants showed a general tendency to recall positive and negative images more frequently than neutral ones, confirming the typical memory advantage for emotionally valenced stimuli. However, psychopathy scores, whether analyzed as a total or by Factor 1 (interpersonal and affective traits) and Factor 2 (behavioral and antisocial traits), did not predict differences in this pattern.
Similarly, recognition accuracy showed no significant relationship with psychopathy, though exploratory analyses suggested a slight trend where individuals with higher Factor 1 traits performed worse in recognizing both positive and negative images compared to neutral ones.
In non-emotional memory tasks, psychopathy scores were also unrelated to performance. Participants demonstrated typical recall and recognition abilities in both auditory and visuospatial domains, as measured by the WMS-IV.
These findings suggest that the presence of psychopathic traits does not impair general memory functioning or preferential emotional memory processing. Instead, any observed trends in emotional memory appear to be minor and non-significant.
Overall, the study challenges assumptions about a robust link between psychopathy and emotional memory deficits, highlighting the need for further exploration possibly using more intense or socially complex emotional stimuli.
Of note is that the exclusively male sample limits the generalizability of results across genders.
The research, “(https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2024.2357146) Effects of psychopathic traits on preferential recall and recognition of emotionally evocative photos,” was authored by Rheanna J. Remmel, Andrea L. Glenn, and Alexandra P. Harrison.

(https://www.psypost.org/partisan-news-habits-strikingly-more-common-in-the-united-states-than-japan-or-hong-kong/) Partisan news habits strikingly more common in the United States than Japan or Hong Kong
Dec 4th 2024, 10:00

A new study published in (https://doi.org/10.1177/00936502241289109) Communication Research has uncovered striking differences in how people from different countries interact with political news. In the United States, individuals overwhelmingly choose news that aligns with their partisan views, reinforcing political divides. However, this pattern is far less pronounced in Hong Kong and nearly absent in Japan, raising questions about the cultural and political factors that influence selective news consumption.
The rise of polarized media and the ease of customizing news consumption have raised concerns about the widening divide in political attitudes, particularly in the United States. Partisan selective exposure, where individuals prefer news that aligns with their views, has been linked to political polarization as it reinforces existing biases.
However, much of the research in this area has been conducted in the United States, where a unique two-party system, partisan media environment, and high levels of political polarization prevail. Researchers aimed to determine whether this behavior is a universal human tendency or a phenomenon shaped by specific cultural and political conditions.
“Research on selective exposure, often considered a contributing factor to political polarization, has been predominantly led by scholars in the United States,” explained study author Tetsuro Kobayashi, a professor of political science and economics at Waseda University.
“While partisan selective exposure is robustly observed in the U.S., I suspected that this phenomenon might not be as pronounced in Asia. Despite this, discussions in Japan and other Asian contexts often took the findings from U.S.-based studies for granted. This prompted me to conduct comparative research to uncover cross-national differences rather than simply assuming the universality of U.S.-centric findings.”
The research consisted of two studies.
In Study 1, Kobayashi and his colleagues aimed to measure partisan selective exposure—the tendency to choose news that aligns with one’s political preferences—across the United States, Japan, and Hong Kong. They used a controlled design involving mock news websites to observe participants’ browsing behavior.
These websites displayed eight headlines, with four political and four non-political stories. The political headlines focused on each region’s political leader: Donald Trump in the United States, Shinzo Abe in Japan, and Carrie Lam in Hong Kong. Among the political headlines, two were positive and two were negative about the leader, allowing participants the option to select either pro-attitudinal or counter-attitudinal content.
Participants were given 90 seconds to explore the site, during which their headline clicks and time spent reading articles were unobtrusively recorded. This time constraint ensured participants could not read all articles, compelling them to make choices that reflected their preferences.
The sample included over 600 participants from each region, recruited through online platforms to ensure diverse and comparable demographic representation. Each participant’s approval or disapproval of their region’s leader was measured beforehand, enabling researchers to categorize clicks and reading times as either pro- or counter-attitudinal.
The results of Study 1 revealed stark differences in media selection behavior across the three regions. Participants in the United States showed a strong preference for pro-attitudinal headlines, clicking on and spending more time with content that aligned with their political views. This behavior was consistent with the concept of partisan selective exposure.
In contrast, Japanese participants showed almost no preference, selecting pro- and counter-attitudinal headlines in nearly equal measure. Participants from Hong Kong exhibited an intermediate level of selective exposure, with a modest preference for pro-attitudinal content but not to the same extent as their U.S. counterparts.
“I anticipated that partisan selective exposure in Japan would be weaker than in the United States, but I did not expect it to be so minimal as to be nearly non-existent,” Kobayashi told PsyPost. “Former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was one of the rare political leaders in Japan who elicited polarized evaluations, leading me to expect some degree of partisan selective exposure. However, this did not materialize in the data.”
These findings highlighted cross-national differences in the strength of partisan selective exposure, with the United States standing out as a unique case. However, while Study 1 confirmed that selective exposure was more pronounced in the United States, it did not explore the factors driving these differences. This limitation led the researchers to design Study 2 to better understand the underlying mechanisms behind the observed patterns.
Study 2 built on the findings of the first study and sought to investigate potential explanations for the cross-national differences in partisan selective exposure. Kobayashi and his colleagues hypothesized that affective polarization might contribute to these differences. They also examined the potential roles of perceived media credibility and cultural factors, such as the tendency to reconcile opposing viewpoints.
This time, participants’ emotional polarization was assessed through a survey measuring their feelings toward political in-groups and out-groups. For example, U.S. participants rated their feelings toward supporters of the Democratic and Republican parties, while Japanese participants rated their feelings toward those who approved or disapproved of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Media trust was measured through questions about the fairness, accuracy, and trustworthiness of the media in each region. Cultural attitudes toward accepting contradictions were assessed using a standardized questionnaire on dialectical thinking, which evaluates individuals’ willingness to reconcile seemingly opposing perspectives.
The findings from Study 2 revealed that affective polarization partly explained the observed cross-national differences in selective exposure. U.S. participants, who exhibited the strongest selective exposure, also displayed the highest levels of affective polarization.
Japanese participants, on the other hand, showed the lowest levels of polarization and the weakest selective exposure. Hong Kong participants, with moderate levels of polarization, fell between the two. This pattern suggested that strong emotional biases against political opponents might drive individuals to avoid counter-attitudinal content.
“The proliferation of the internet and social media does not deterministically amplify partisan selective exposure,” Kobayashi explained. “Instead, the intensification of selective exposure occurs primarily in politically polarized contexts. In the United States, polarization stems from various causes and has been a longstanding trend predating the advent of the internet. It is reasonable to consider a bidirectional causal relationship between partisan selective exposure and political polarization.”
Interestingly, the researchers found that perceived media credibility and cultural attitudes toward contradictions did not significantly explain the cross-national differences in selective exposure. While previous studies have linked low trust in media to biased information consumption, this relationship was not evident in this study. Similarly, the cultural tendency of East Asians to reconcile contradictions did not appear to suppress selective exposure in Japan or Hong Kong.
“A significant portion of the cross-country differences remains unexplained,” Kobayashi told PsyPost. “The inability to fully identify these unexplained differences is one of the key limitations of this study.”
The findings also underscore the need for cross-national research to develop a more nuanced understanding of political communication and polarization.
“Many theories and models in political communication research are grounded in the U.S. political system,” Kobayashi said. “However, as this study demonstrates, phenomena robustly observed in the U.S. may not manifest in the same way in Asia. My long-term goal is to develop theories and models of political communication that are firmly rooted in the realities of Asian political systems.”
The study, “(https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/00936502241289109) Is Partisan Selective Exposure an American Peculiarity? A Comparative Study of News Browsing Behaviors in the United States, Japan, and Hong Kong,” was authored by Tetsuro Kobayashi, Zhifan Zhang, and Ling Liu.

Forwarded by:
Michael Reeder LCPC
Baltimore, MD

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