Changes in the relationship between attachment and emotion recognition from adolescence to adulthood

Katalin Oláh

PLOS ONE, 2025, vol. 20, issue 6, 1-15

Abstract: The present study investigated the relationship between attachment and emotion recognition in adolescents and adults. While previous research has found an association between these constructs in young children, as of yet, only a handful of studies have extended the investigation to later periods of life, either focusing on adults or adolescents. To capture the developmental changes that may take place during the transition from childhood to adulthood, we present findings with the same methodology on a group of adults and adolescents between the ages of 14 and 18. Participants completed the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test and filled out a self-report questionnaire on attachment style. Results suggest that attachment avoidance is associated with poorer emotion recognition capacities in adolescents, specifically in the case of positive emotions, while anxiety may have a positive, although weaker effect on mindreading. These associations are attenuated significantly by adulthood. Results are discussed in terms of information processing biases associated with attachment anxiety and avoidance.

Date: 2025
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0325205 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 25205&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0325205

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0325205

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().