Attachment insecurity moderates emotion responses to mindfulness and loving-kindness meditation in adults raised in low socioeconomic status households.

West, Don, & Fredrickson, B  (2022) published “Attachment Insecurity Moderates Emotion Responses to Mindfulness and Loving-kindness Meditation in Adults Raised in Low Socioeconomic Status Households in Emotion. They begin by observing that previous attachment research suggests that insecure attachment influences people’s daily social and emotional experiences. 

Since mindfulness meditation and loving-kindness meditation have been associated with improvements in physical and mental well-being often through their influence on emotion experience and regulation. We suspected that the emotion profiles of anxious and avoidant attachment may shift with meditation training, both across time and on a particular day. Improving emotional well-being may be especially consequential for those most at risk for negative health outcomes in late life. 

They used a diverse community sample of 113 midlife adults raised in low-SES homes who completed daily emotion reports for 10 weeks, with six weeks of meditation training, randomized to either loving-kindness or mindfulness meditation practice.  Here’s more from the abstract:

Results from growth curve analyses revealed that individuals with greater attachment anxiety and randomized to mindfulness meditation reported significant increases over time in positive emotions alongside decreases in negative emotions. Those high in attachment avoidance reported significant decreases in negative emotions in both meditation groups. On the daily level, within-person dose–response analyses revealed that individuals with greater attachment anxiety showed the most consistent dose-response relations between the duration of either meditation practice and same-day increases in positive emotions and decreases in negative emotions. These findings highlight how meditation interventions can shift emotion profiles of insecurely attached midlife adults who are at heightened risk for late life chronic illnesses. 

I’ve posted before about effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). There are many circumstances in lower SES homes that may increase the likelihood of attachment distress. Since we know that ACEs predict negative health outcomes, this is a promising study in suggesting that interventions that can assist adults. While it is not surprising that those with avoidant attachment are harder to help than those with anxious attachment status, this intervention is a good example of a relatively inexpensive method to assist those with both kinds of attachment distress.