Attachment Style and Affect Regulation: Implications for Coping with Stress and Mental Health

In contemporary social psychology, a wealth of theoretical and empirical work has been carried out in understanding the ways in which people regulate emotional distress, cope with stressful events, and maintain an adequate level of mental health. In this context, Bowlby's (1969, 1973, 1980) attachment theory appears to provide one of the best frameworks for examining individual differences and psychological processes related to the broad issue of affect regulation. In this chapter, we present our conceptualization of the attachment system as a psychoevolutionary affect regulation device and our view of adult attachment style as a basic source of individual differences in the use of specific regulatory strategies. Then we review the existing body of empirical knowledge, examining (1) the contribution of adult attachment style to the process of coping with stressful events and the management of negative emotions, and (2) the implications of attachment-style differences in affect regulation for mental health and psychopathology.