Helping Insecurely Attached People Regulate Negative Emotions: The Moderating Role of Romantic Partners’ Support on the Effect of Attachment on Appraisal and Eating

Insecurely attached people have difficulties regulating their emotions and are less likely to use adaptive emotion regulation strategies, such as cognitive reappraisal. Yet, romantic partners may play a pivotal role in helping insecurely attached people reappraise situations and reduce negative emotions. Anxiously and avoidantly attached people, however, may need different types of support to regulate their negative emotions. Some prior research has examined the types of support that are more effective for anxiously and avoidantly attached people, but no work has related attachment orientations and emotion regulation patterns to eating behavior. To address this gap, we conducted a 14-day daily diary study examining these associations to determine: (a) the degree to which anxiously and avoidantly attached people perceived specific types of support from their romantic partner as more effective in regulating their daily negative emotions, and (b) how these perceptions were associated with their daily eating behavior. We found that highly anxious people reported less use of cognitive reappraisal than less anxious people, but that attachment avoidance was not associated with reappraisal. Both attachment anxiety and avoidance, however, were associated with greater negative affect, and the use of reappraisal was associated with less negative affect. Specifically, on days when reappraisal was high, negative affect was more likely to be low compared to days when reappraisal was low. Also, on days when the amount of general support received was high, reappraisal and positive mood after receiving support were also high compared to days when general support received was low. Although eating was not associated with perceived support, it was negatively associated with stress and negative affect. Thus, while matches of partner support type with attachment insecurity did not interact to predict reappraisal, general support received from a partner was associated with greater reappraisal.