attachment and emotional intelligence abilities

Personality and Individual Differences 37 (2004) 129–145www.elsevier.com/locate/paid

Attachment and emotional intelligence abilitiesacross the life course q

Konstantinos Kafetsios *

Department of Psychology, APU––Cambridge, East Road, Cambridge CB1 1PT, UK

Received 31 October 2002; received in revised form 25 July 2003; accepted 24 August 2003

Available online 14 October 2003

Abstract

The study tested hypotheses about the relationship between attachment orientations and emotional in-

telligence, measured as a set of abilities (perception, facilitation, understanding and management of emo-

tion). The sample consisted of 239 adults aged between 19 and 66 years who completed the Mayer, Salovey,

and Caruso emotional intelligence test (MSCEIT V2.0) and the relationship questionnaire. Secure attach-

ment was positively related to all sub-scales (except perception of emotion) and total EI score. Contrary to

expectations, dismissing attachment was positively associated with the ability to understand emotion. Theresults also found differences in emotional intelligence abilities between age and gender groups. Older

participants scored higher on three out of four branches of EI (facilitation, understanding and management)

and females scored higher than males on emotion perception and the experiential area. The study highlights

the importance of distinguishing fearful and dismissing avoidance and the associated cognitive and affective

processes and provides a validation for the recent emotional intelligence abilities test.

� 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Attachment; Emotional intelligence; Working models; Age and gender differences

1. Introduction

Twenty years of research on the interactions between affect and cognition has laid the foun-dations for recent work on emotional intelligence (see Forgas, 2001 for a review). The emotional

qPart of this paper was presented as an oral presentation at the 12th Conference of the International Society for

Research on Emotions, Cuenca, Spain (July 2002).* Tel.: +44-1223-363271x2697; fax: +44-1223-417711.

E-mail address: [email protected] (K. Kafetsios).

0191-8869/$ - see front matter � 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1016/j.paid.2003.08.006

mail to: [email protected]

130 K. Kafetsios / Personality and Individual Differences 37 (2004) 129–145

intelligence concept originally proposed by Salovey and Mayer in 1990 has provided a strongbasis on which to investigate individual differences in how people reason with, and about, feelings.A recently elaborated approach shifts the emphasis from a trait (e.g. Bar-On, 1997; Schutte et al.,1998) to an ability conceptualisation of emotional intelligence (Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey, 2000;Mayer, Salovey, Caruso, & Sitarenios, 2001). According to this, emotional intelligence (hence-forth EI) is the capacity to perceive, express, understand, use, and manage emotions in oneself andother people (Mayer & Salovey, 1997).Over the last decade, a body of work on attachment orientations has also provided a coherent

account of individual differences in cognitive and affective processes related to EI abilities (e.g.Collins, 1996; Kobak & Sceery, 1988; Mikulincer & Florian, 2001; Rholes, Simpson, & Stevens,1998). Attachment theory highlights the interpersonal roots of adult emotionality contending thatemotional defences associated with insecure attachment inhibit information processing of emo-tional messages, and block awareness of feelings and intentions in self and other (Bowlby, 1969,1988). Adult attachment orientations incorporate both affective and cognitive rules and strategiesthat drive emotional reactions in individuals and relationships. Secure, anxious/ambivalent andavoidant persons employ fundamentally different strategies of affect regulation and emotion in-formation processing (Shaver, Collins, & Clark, 1996).Despite numerous calls for an examination of the personality correlates of EI (e.g. Forgas,

2001) to our knowledge, no research has directly examined the relationship between attachmentorientations and EI abilities. The present study aimed, on the one hand, to look at the emotionalconsequences of attachment orientations across the life course thus extending a recent, vibrantliterature on the affective concomitants of adult attachment and on the other, to test the validity ofthe EI construct (Mayer et al., 2000).

1.1. EI and attachment orientations incorporate cognitive and affective processes

The conceptualisation of emotional intelligence as a set of abilities (Mayer & Salovey, 1997;Salovey, Mayer, Caruso, & Lopes, in press) highlights the intricate interactions of cognition withaffect that underlie emotion information processing. A recently developed measure (MSCEIT;Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2002) has been shown to successfully operationalise EI and its cor-responding four branches of abilities: perception, facilitation, understanding, and management(Ciarrochi, Chan, & Caputi, 2000; Mayer et al., 2000; Mayer et al., 2002). Emotional perception isdefined as the basic ability of registering emotional stimuli in self and others; it has been suggestedto have evolutionary roots and affinities with empathic and emotion communication processes(e.g. Buck, 1984). Emotional facilitation refers to processes by which affect facilitates thought byprioritising problems, operating unique memory stores, mood shifting and implicit informationprocesses (Mayer, 2001). Emotion understanding involves memory processes and structures oflabelling emotion. It indicates how well a person understands emotional meanings and emotionalsituations. Finally, management of emotion refers to the ability to regulate emotions in self andothers in order to promote emotional and intellectual growth. Recent studies support a generaltwo-factor model where the perception and facilitation branches correspond to the experientialarea of abilities and the latter two to the strategic area (Mayer et al., 2002).The interface of cognitive and emotional processes is also central to adult attachment. On the

one hand, attachment orientations are based on internalised interpersonal expectations about the

K. Kafetsios / Personality and Individual Differences 37 (2004) 129–145 131

availability of the self and other (or working models), which are shaped by repeated experienceswithin the context of early secure or insecure attachment relationships. Working models gen-eralise across relationships at different developmental stages (Bretherton, 1991; Main, Kaplan, &Cassidy, 1985), and are generally resistant to revision and change (West & Sheldon-Keller, 1994).On the other hand, there is recent, affect-orientated research that supports direct links betweenattachment orientations and emotional consequences. Persons with secure models use emotionalregulation strategies that minimise stress and emphasise positive emotions (see Mikulincer &Florian, 2001 for a review). Those with insecure models follow emotion regulation strategies thatemphasise negative emotions and experience situations in a more stressful manner (anxious at-tachment), or tend to repress emotional experiences (avoidant attachment). Emotion regulationis proposed to function as a trait-like stylistic process within adult attachment (Fuendeling,1998).Inspired by a conceptualisation of working models of the self and others, Bartholomew (1990)

proposed a model of four attachment types which combines the affective (valence) with thecognitive (self-other representations) aspects. Bartholomew�s secure type corresponds to a positivemodel of the self and of others. The preoccupied type (corresponds to Hazan and Shaver�sanxious/ambivalent style) combines a negative model of self and a positive model of other. Theavoidant style originally proposed by Hazan and Shaver (1987) is divided into two further types:fearful (negative models of both self and others) and dismissing (negative model of others and apositive model of self). The four types can also be expressed as combinations of two dimensions ofanxiety (self-model) and avoidance (other-model) (Griffin & Bartholomew, 1994). Numerousstudies have documented the effects of working models on information processing (e.g. Baldwin,Keelan, Fehr, Enns, & Koh-Rangarajoo, 1996) and emotion (Collins, 1996) using the tripartitemodel, but there is still little work examining associations between attachment dimensions andemotion using Bartholomew�s model.

1.2. Attachment orientations and EI abilities

Although there is little research that has examined attachment and emotional intelligence di-rectly, there are several studies on the cognitive and affective aspects of attachment orientationswhich guide our thinking about individual differences in the perception, facilitation, under-standing and management of emotion.First, there is abundant evidence for the relationship between attachment orientations and

emotional perception. Developmental research has shown that secure infants have sensitive andresponsive caregivers who communicate effectively with their offspring (e.g. Biringen & Robinson,1991). Recent work on adult attachment documents some emotion perception biases of attach-ment orientations (Magai, Distel, & Liker, 1995). Magai et al. found that secure individuals wererelatively accurate in decoding facial expressions of negative emotions, while avoidant personshad lower scores in emotion decoding accuracy (especially joy). Anxious/ambivalent males wereinaccurate in decoding anger but anxious/ambivalent females were more accurate, highlightinggender as a moderator of the attachment and emotional intelligence relationships. Despite theseinteresting insights, Magai et al.�s (1995) research was limited in its employing Ekman andFriesen�s (1975) test. Recent failures to replicate Magai et al.�s findings (e.g. Zoula, 1999) could beattributed to the fact that Ekman�s test involves posed facial expressions and employs a target


method for assessing accuracy. The EI test which was used in the present study assesses a widerrange of emotion perception abilities and employs the consensus method.Evidence for attachment consequences on emotion perception abilities is also provided by

research on non-verbal communication accuracy in close relationships (Feeney, Noller, & Callan,1994). In this study, males� anxious attachment dimension was negatively related to accuracy indecoding their partners� positive non-verbal behaviours, as assessed with a naturalistic test of non-verbal accuracy (standard content paradigm). More recently, work that employed both laboratoryand naturalistic tasks of emotion decoding accuracy found a positive association between secureattachment and emotion decoding accuracy of partners� facial expressions (Kafetsios, 2000).A further, central aspect of EI abilities concerns the management of emotion personally and

interpersonally (Mayer, 2001). Likewise, attachment orientations are related to differences inemotion regulation at different life-stages (Kobak & Sceery, 1988; Mikulincer & Florian, 2001).Insecure adolescents are less ego-resilient, more anxious and hostile than their secure friends andas adults experience less positive and more negative emotions in relationship contexts. Insecurepartners not only tend to experience more negative emotion but also suppress their emotions morethan secure partners in interpersonal contexts (Feeney, 1995).Finally, attachment orientations involve complex interactions between affect and cognition that

can sustain hypotheses related to emotion facilitation and understanding. It is noteworthy thatthese two EI sub-domains have been found to correlate highly (Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2000).Several studies converge in their findings that avoidant individuals pay less attention to affect thansecure or anxious/preoccupied persons. In a test of emotion elaboration, both secure and anxious/preoccupied participants reported high felt intensity of cued emotions in contrast to individualswith avoidant attachment who seemed to regulate their affect at such a basic level that it is isolatedfrom memory processes (Mikulincer & Orbach, 1995). In the same study, avoidant participantsalso had the slowest reaction times for recalling sad and anxious memories. More recent studiessuggests that avoidant participants are less attentive to emotional events (Fraley, Garner, &Shaver, 2000) and conversely, anxious/ambivalents pay particular attention to negative emotion(Collins, 1996; Fraley & Shaver, 1997). Avoidants actively deny feeling distress but at a physio-logical level they seem to be experiencing heightened stress and anxiety during recollection ofstressful familial events (Dozier & Kobak, 1992).Nevertheless, the research reviewed above did not distinguish between fearful (high avoidance

and anxiety) and dismissing (low avoidance and anxiety) attachment. Certainly, it is difficult todevelop specific hypotheses about links between the fearful or dismissing styles and emotion in-telligence abilities since Bartholomew�s typology has not been widely used. There is, however,evidence that points to the utility of distinguishing the emotional processes associated withfearful-avoidant and dismissing-avoidant persons (Kafetsios & Nezlek, 2002; Pietromonaco &Feldman-Barrett, 1997). For example, in a study of everyday emotional experience, Kafetsios andNezlek found that compared to dismissing-avoidant, fearful-avoidant persons experience morepositive emotion in interactions with friends but less positive emotions in interactions with pro-spective romantic partners.A further aim of the present study was to test EI and attachment connections across the life

course. This is in keeping with the developmental criterion of emotional intelligence abilities (i.e.that emotional intelligence develops with age and experience; Mayer et al., 2000; Mayer et al.,2002) and a growing literature which suggests that emotional functioning improves in middle


and later adulthood (e.g. Carstensen, Pasupathi, Mayr, & Nesselroade, 2000). In the adultattachment literature there is some (albeit limited) evidence suggesting that experience andmaturation might be more influential on the anxious-insecure dimension. Anxious attachmentwas inversely related with age in the US and Greece (Mickelson, Kessler, & Shaver, 1997;Kafetsios, submitted for publication). There is, however, limited information on the emotionalconsequences of attachment across different age groups. This is an important issue with im-plications for mechanisms of change in attachment orientations (Davila, Karney, & Bradbury,1999).Finally, research on emotional abilities has consistently found that women are more accurate

in emotion perception tasks (e.g. Hall, 1987; Mayer & Geher, 1996; Rosenthal, Hall, Di-Matteo, Rogers, & Archer, 1979). Recent work with the MSCEIT (Mayer et al., 2002) alsosuggests that women score higher than males on all the scales (especially in managing emo-tions).

1.3. Hypotheses

ii(i) On the basis of the literature review secure attachment is expected to correlate positively withthe recognition, use, labelling and regulation of emotion. Based on less consistent evidencefor differences among the three insecure attachment orientations it is expected that avoidantand anxious/preoccupied will be negatively related to emotional intelligence abilities. Thereare no specific predictions for the differential associations of the two avoidant sub-types (fear-ful and dismissing) with EI as there is limited information.

i(ii) In keeping with the developmental criterion of the EI abilities it is expected that older par-ticipants will have higher EI scores. There is some evidence for attachment interaction effectswith age but it is not sufficient to formulate a specific hypothesis and this remains as an ex-ploratory question.

(iii) Based on relevant studies, females are expected to have higher EI scores.

2. Method

2.1. Participants

There were 239 participants contacted through advertisements on campus in a British Uni-versity and snowballing sampling (where older participants were asked to provide introductions totheir own circle of friends and acquaintances at work). Participation in the study was voluntaryand questionnaires were completed individually. The age range was 19–66 (average 38.7 years, SD13.5 two peaks at 20 and 48 years) and the distribution of age groupings was as follows: 19–21:16.7%; 22–29: 16.8%; 30–39: 11.5%; 40–49: N 30.6%; 50–66: 22%. In terms of gender the samplewas balanced as a whole (55.6% females) and across the age groups. Forty per cent of participantswere married. Participants had a high level of education typical of the area: 78% of participantswere either sitting for, or had completed a University degree (8% at Master�s level) and 20% had aHigh school certificate. A number of participants (N ¼ 57) were selectively administered only theperception and management parts of the MSCEIT.


2.2. Materials

2.2.1. Emotional intelligence test

The paper and pencil version 2.0 of the MSCEIT (Mayer et al. Emotional Intelligence Test,2002, 141 items) was used. The test measures individuals� performance on tasks and ability tosolve emotional problems. It provides a total emotional intelligence score as well as four branch(sub-scale) scores: perception, facilitation, understanding, and managing emotion. Each branch iscomprised of scores in two sections described in more detail later. The four branches can also bedistinguished conceptually in terms of experiential (perception, facilitation) or strategic (under-standing, management) aspects.

2.2.2. Consensus scoring

Consensus scoring is the preferred method for assessing EI abilities as it provides a solution tothe problem of determining what constitutes a �correct answer� (Mayer et al., 2002). The consensusapproach is based on what the majority of the respondents regard as correct and has been shownto be more effective than the target method (i.e. what target identifies as expressed or felt; Mayer& Geher, 1996). Participants� scores reflect the degree of fit between their responses and those ofthe norm for this sample.

2.2.3. PerceptionTwo sections measure emotion in four faces, three landscapes, and three abstract designs. In the

faces task the participant reports on the emotional content of each face rating the degree ofhappiness, fear, surprise, disgust and excitement on a five-point scale (1 ¼ no emotion and5 ¼ extreme amount of emotion). On the landscape task, participants� reactions to the picturesare rated in terms of: happiness, fear, anger, disgust. The three abstract tasks are rated on sadness,fear, anger, surprise, disgust on a similar five-point scale. Each rating point (1 ¼ no emotion to5 ¼ extreme amount of emotion) was represented by a small face drawing to signify the amountof emotion, and hence ensuring the task was as uncontaminated as possible with verbal content.The internal consistency for the sub-scale was good (a ¼ 0:88).

2.2.4. FacilitationThis sub-scale involves task B (facilitation) of the assessment of participants� knowledge of

how different moods can be effective for certain kinds of problem solving. For example, theparticipant has to identify which mood is the most helpful when �creating exciting decorations fora birthday party�. A choice of three options is provided rated on a five-point scale. The other area(F sensation task) involves comparing how different emotions can be related to other sensations.For example, how similar is the feeling of contentment to �warm, purple, salty� on a five-pointscale (1 ¼ not alike to 5 ¼ very much alike). Internal consistency for this branch was low(a ¼ 0:61).

2.2.5. Understanding

Section G (blends task) measures a person�s ability to label emotions and group emotionalterms together. Using a multi choice format participants try to match a set of emotions to anothersingle emotion. Section C (changes task) assesses knowledge of how emotions combine and


change. For example how anger can change into rage. Internal consistency for the branch wasadequate (a ¼ 0:75).

2.2.6. Managing emotionsSection H (social management) is concerned with emotions in relationships. It asks participants

to evaluate the effectiveness of different actions in achieving a specified outcome that involvesother people. Section D (emotion management) is concerned with emotion management in theindividual and in other people. Five different scenarios are presented which describe a person witha goal of changing or maintaining a feeling. Each of a list of four different actions is evaluated interms of effectiveness. Internal consistency for the branch was low (a ¼ 0:58).The internal consistency of the two experiential and strategic areas were satisfactory (a ¼ 0:86

and a ¼ 0:77 respectively) whereas the total test had good internal consistency (a ¼ 0:86).

2.2.7. Attachment orientations

Attachment orientations were assessed with the Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991) relationshipquestionnaire (RQ). This is a four-item questionnaire with brief-sentence descriptions of eachattachment orientation (secure, fearful, preoccupied, dismissing). Descriptions are based on theinitial, tripartite attachment measure developed by Hazan and Shaver (1987) with the rephrasingof one (fearful attachment) and the addition of a fourth category (dismissing attachment). Forexample, the secure orientation paragraph reads: �It is easy for me to become emotionally close toothers. I am comfortable depending on others and having others depend on me. I do not worryabout being alone or having others not accept me�. Each attachment description was rated on aseven point Likert scale (1 ¼ not like me, to 7 ¼ very much like me). The RQ has been typicallyincluded in several studies, and has demonstrated good reliability and validity (Bartholomew &Shaver, 1998).

2.3. Procedure

The questionnaires were administered individually or in groups of 2–3 persons.

3. Results

Table 1 presents the basic statistics for the four EI branches and the two area scores (experi-ential and strategic). The results are comparable to most recently published data (reviewed inMayer et al., 2002).

3.1. EI factors

A factor analysis using principal components was employed to explore the underlying structureof the EI test (see Table 2). A two-factor solution was found both using orthogonal (varimax) andcorrelated (oblimin) rotation. The first factor accounted for almost 36% of the total variance andloaded on the strategic area (management and understanding of emotion) and the second factorloaded on the experiential area (emotion perception and facilitation) accounting for 17% of the

Table 1

Zero-order correlation coefficients among branches, areas and total scores of emotional intelligence

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1. Perception 7.50

2. Facilitation 0.44 5.26

3. Understanding 0.18 0.26 7.66

4. Management 0.32 0.48 0.47 4.93

5. Experiential Area 0.89 0.80 0.32 0.44 5.15

6. Strategic Area 0.23 0.44 0.91 0.81 0.37 5.23

7. Total EI 0.66 0.73 0.71 0.76 0.82 0.82 4.26

NB: N ¼ 164–237. SDs are provided in diagonals. All correlations significant p < 0:01.

Table 2

Factor analysis of the branch scores

Rotated solution (orthogonal)

Component 1 Component 2

Variance (before rotation) 35.64% 17.36 %

Perception

Faces A 0.03 0.70

Pictures E 0.12 0.66

Facilitation

Sensations F 0.64 0.27

Facilitation B 0.03 0.70

Understanding

Blends G 0.75 0.01

Changes C 0.83 0.01

Management

Emotional D 0.46 0.48

Social H 0.74 0.23


total variance. In oblimin there was a negative correlation between factors (r ¼ �0:31). The factorstructure is similar to results reported in recent research (Salovey et al., in press).

3.2. Attachment orientations

Each participant received four scores corresponding to the four attachment orientations, ananalytical approach adopted in previous studies (e.g. Simpson, 1990). The secure orientation hada higher average (M ¼ 4:49, SD 1.87) than either of the insecure orientations (Fearful M ¼ 2:84,SD 1.47; Preoccupied M ¼ 2:62, SD 1.58; Dismissing M ¼ 2:62, SD 1.81). Univariate ANOVAwith gender and age as predictors was used to test for differences in attachment orientations. Agewas divided into four groups (19–29, 30–39, 40–49, 50–66). There were no significant age orgender differences in the secure, fearful or preoccupied orientations. Compared to the lower age


groups, males and participants over 50 had higher dismissing scores than females and youngerparticipants respectively (Fð1;208Þ ¼ 6:60, p < 0:001; Fð3;208Þ ¼ 4:17, p ¼ 0:01).

3.3. Age, gender and EI

Gender and age were entered in ANOVA models and marginal means for both are presented inTable 3. Females scored significantly higher than males on the perception branch (Fð1;206Þ ¼ 11:01,p < 0:0001) and the experiential area (Fð1;157Þ ¼ 4:44, p < 0:0001). There were no significant agedifferences in the perception branch but older persons scored consistently higher on the facilita-tion (Fð3;160Þ ¼ 4:13, p < 0:01), understanding (Fð3;158Þ ¼ 5:62, p < 0:001), managing emotionbranches (Fð3;162Þ ¼ 5:42, p < 0:001), the strategic area (Fð3;158Þ ¼ 7:15, p < 0:001) and total EI(Fð1;148Þ ¼ 4:33, p < 0:01). There were no significant interactions between gender and age.

3.4. Attachment and EI

The product moment correlations between attachment and EI branch scores in males and fe-males are presented in Table 4. Secure attachment had consistent positive correlations with fa-cilitation, understanding and management emotion abilities, the strategic area, and total EI.Fearful attachment was negatively associated with emotion facilitation in females. Preoccupiedattachment was negatively associated with EI abilities but none reached significance. Dismissing-avoidant attachment was positively associated with emotion understanding in both males andfemales and the strategic area.Given that attachment orientations were simultaneous assessed, a multiple regression analysis

was conducted as a further test of association between attachment orientations and EI abilities(Table 5). Generally, the result agreed with the bivariate correlations in Table 4. The secure

Table 3

EI and age and gender differences

19–29 (N ¼ 105) 30–39 (N ¼ 24) 40–49 (N ¼ 62) 50–66 (N ¼ 46)

M F TL M F TL M F TL M F TL

Perception 43.59

(7.12)

46.37

(6.05)

45.15

(6.64)

43.56

(9.20)

47.35

(6.47)

45.77

(7.77)

42.90

(9.95)

48.58

(6.71)

46.34

(8.53)

44.74

(8.85)

47.45

(5.30)

46.04

(7.42)

Facilitation 37.49

(3.92)

37.63

(5.36)

37.56

(4.63)

37.72

(4.07)

38.65

(5.33)

38.27

(4.74)

39.76

(4.80)

41.44

(5.67)

40.71

(5.32)

38.64

(5.21)

41.95

(5.43)

40.10

(5.50)

Understanding 49.32

(6.92)

46.65

(7.67)

48.03

(7.36)

54.23

(3.03)

51.82

(7.35)

52.81

(5.94)

53.22

(3.85)

51.57

(7.89)

52.30

(6.44)

52.49

(6.22)

52.41

(7.80)

52.45

(6.90)

Management 35.45

(4.87)

36.49

(4.64)

35.96

(4.75)

40.29

(3.17)

38.89

(3.60)

39.47

(3.40)

38.87

(4.87)

39.73

(4.95)

39.37

(4.88)

38.63

(5.49)

38.21

(5.12)

38.45

(5.28)

Area I experiential 41.11

(3.44)

42.66

(4.06)

41.86

(3.80)

41.54

(4.79)

42.32

(4.57)

41.00

(4.53)

41.04

(6.63)

45.19

(4.34)

43.39

(5.77)

41.59

(6.33)

44.77

(4.52)

43.02

(5.75)

Area II strategic 42.39

(5.32)

41.56

(5.25)

41.00

(5.26)

47.26

(2.55)

45.35

(4.87)

46.14

(4.09)

46.05

(3.58)

45.68

(6.02)

45.84

(5.05)

45.55

(4.90)

45.31

(5.51)

45.44

(5.12)

EI 41.78

(3.32)

41.83

(3.95)

41.80

(3.59)

44.40

(3.27)

43.84

(3.15)

44.07

(3.11)

43.52

(4.76)

45.46

(4.73)

44.59

(4.79)

43.28

(5.00)

45.04

(4.10)

44.13

(4.60)

NB: Means and standard deviations (in parenthesis). M ¼ males, F ¼ females, TL ¼ total group.

Table 4

Zero-order correlations between attachment styles and EI branch and area scores by gender

Secure Fearful Preoccupied Dismissing

M F TL M F TL M F TL M F TL

Perception 0.11 )0.02 0.08 )0.15 )0.09 )0.10 )0.08 )0.04 )0.16 )0.07 )0.17 )0.11A. Faces 0.09 )0.04 0.07 )0.03 )0.09 )0.03 )0.01 0.09 )0.05 )0.14 )0.06 )0.12E. Pictures 0.11 0.01 0.07 )0.18 )0.07 )0.11 )0.10 )0.13 )0.21 0.03 )0.21� )0.06

Facilitation 0.05 0.32�� 0.20�� 0.01 )0.15 0.01 )0.02 0.10 )0.06 )0.05 )0.11 )0.05B. Sensation )0.18 )0.02 )0.07 0.03 )0.01 0.05 )0.07 )0.03 )0.10 )0.21 )0.13 )0.16F. Facilitation 0.27� 0.48�� 0.35�� )0.05 )0.23� )0.08 0.03 0.17 0.01 0.13 )0.04 0.05

Understanding 0.16 0.32�� 0.23�� )0.06 )0.03 )0.01 )0.01 0.12 )0.04 0.37�� 0.21� 0.28��

C. Changes 0.12 0.20 0.18� )0.16 )0.06 )0.07 )0.04 0.11 )0.07 0.30�� 0.22� 0.26��

G. Blends 0.19 0.30�� 0.22�� 0.01 0.06 0.07 0.05 0.06 )0.01 0.27� 0.16 0.22��

Management 0.11 0.26� 0.19� 0.01 )0.04 0.02 )0.01 0.08 0.04 0.11 0.01 0.04

D. Emotion

management

0.02 0.11 0.09 )0.05 )0.07 )0.05 0.16 )0.08 0.02 0.10 )0.07 )0.01

H. Emotion

relationships

0.13 0.29�� 0.20�� 0.04 )0.01 0.08 )0.10 0.15 )0.02 0.09 0.05 0.08

Area1: experiential 0.10 0.14 0.15 )0.17 )0.14 )0.08 )0.07 0.06 )0.16 )0.02 )0.20� )0.07Area 2: strategic 0.16 0.33�� 0.26�� )0.03 )0.04 )0.03 0.01 0.12 0.05 0.28�� 0.15 0.20��

Total EI 0.21 0.32�� 0.28�� )0.15 )0.10 )0.09 )0.03 0.11 )0.04 0.15 0.01 0.06

NB: N ¼ 164–237. �p < 0:05, ��p < 0:01, ��p < 0:001. M ¼ males, F ¼ females, TL ¼ total group.


orientation had significant, positive correlations with emotion facilitation, understanding, man-agement, the strategic area and total EI scores and the dismissing orientation had positive as-sociations with emotion understanding and the strategic area. There were also negativecorrelations between preoccupied orientation and emotion perception and the experiential areabut these should be interpreted with caution given the large number of tests involved.Additionally, attachment by age interactions were tested by creating dummy variables for age,

centring and then multiplying before entering in the second step of the regression (Aiken & West,1991). Of the 28 additional tests, only age by fearful attachment had a significant interaction inpredicting the experiential area scores (b ¼ 0:19, p ¼ 0:01; DR2 ¼ 0:08, F change ¼ 3.74,p < 0:001). That is, being younger and fearful was positively associated with the experiential areascores. We also found two further interactions between age and fearful attachment in the pre-diction of perception and total EI scores (in the same direction), significant at the p < 0:05 level.

4. Discussion

Although it has been argued recently that attachment is likely to be related to emotional in-telligence (Kim, submitted for publication), the present study provides the first empirical evidence,to our knowledge, that certain attachment orientations are related to specific EI abilities assessedwith the recently developed measure (MSCEIT, Mayer et al., 2002). Furthermore, by employing asample of participants from a wide age range it was possible to establish predictive validity of

Table 5

Multiple regressions of EI branches and areas on attachment orientations

Perception Facilitation Understanding Management Area 1 Area 2 EI total

R2 b R2 b R2 b R2 b R2 b R2 b R2 b

Step 1 0.04� 0.05� 0.16�� 0.05 0.05 0.12�� 0.09��

Secure 0.04 0.18� 0.22�� 0.17� 0.10 0.24�� 0.24��

Fearful )0.07 0.07 )0.01 0.08 )0.03 0.01 )0.03Preoccupied )0.15� )0.07 )0.08 0.01 )0.16� 0.01 )0.05Dismissing )0.04 0.02 0.30�� 0.09 0.03 0.23�� 0.15�

NB: N ¼ 164–237. �p < 0:05, ��p < 0:01, ��p < 0:001.

K.Kafetsio

s/Perso

nality

andIndivid

ualDifferen

ces37(2004)129–145

139


MSCEIT to do with attachment orientations and also to test for age differences in attachment andEI.In line with the hypotheses, secure attachment was consistently positively related to three out of

four EI branches (facilitation, understanding and management), the strategic area and total EIscores. Certain tasks were particularly predictive of the secure attachment orientation (facilitation,blends and emotion management in relationships). These results were generally representative inboth males and females and did not show any interactions with age. As expected, preoccupiedattachment orientation was negatively associated with emotional intelligence abilities but thisresult achieved significance only for the first branch (perception abilities and especially the pic-tures task). The results concerning fearful-avoidant attachment and EI abilities were in line withexpectations but not at statistically significant levels.Maybe one of the most interesting findings of the present study was the strong, positive rela-

tionship between dismissing-avoidant attachment and emotion understanding in both males andfemales and for both changes and blends tasks. At first sight this finding seems to go againstobservations from research using the tripartite model that avoidants are generally emotionallydefensive (Fuendeling, 1998). Developmental theory also sees avoidance as a result of emotionalsocialisation in environments where affective experiences are undervalued and consciously denied(Main, 1991). However, more recent studies using the four-type model have begun to uncoverdifferences in the emotional defences of dismissing and fearful-avoidant persons. For example,compared to fearful-avoidants, dismissing-avoidant persons seem to handle emotions more ef-fectively in order to promote personal wellbeing (Fraley & Shaver, 1997; Fraley et al., 2000). Also,Searle and Meara (1999) found that secure and dismissing-avoidant participants experiencedlower levels of emotional intensity than preoccupied and fearful persons. Less intense affectiveexperience of emotion may enhance cognitive processes of understanding emotions (e.g. catego-rising, labelling, etc.), a hypothesis in line with the information processing basis of EI (Mayer &Salovey, 1997). Finally, it is noteworthy that both in ours, and Searle and Meara�s (1999) studiesthe emotional outcomes (EI, emotion intensity) were associated primarily with the positive self-model (secure and dismissing orientations) which corresponds to the lower end of the anxietydimension in terms of the contemporary two-dimensional model of adult attachment organisa-tion.This line of thought is also in keeping with Crittenden�s (1998) developmental-information

processing model. From this perspective, dismissing-avoidant persons are socialised in relation-ships where there is a predictable punishment of affective signals that leads them to utilise cog-nitive routes of understanding emotional exchanges in favour of affective routes. Future researchshould investigate differences in the processing of emotion information (e.g. cognitive vs. affectiveroutes) between the avoidant attachment orientations.There are also important implications in the area of clinical practice with the possibility that

some types of psychotherapy (e.g. RET) might be more suitable for participants with certain typesof insecure attachment orientations than others. For example, dismissing avoidant persons mightbe more amenable to structured, cognitive-oriented restructuring of emotions whereas fearful-avoidants might be more responsive to behaviourally-oriented manipulation of affect.Another aspect of this work was the exploration of possible attachment and emotion links at

different life-stages. Generally, the results support the idea that secure and insecure attachmentorientations consistently affect peoples� abilities across the life stages and that emotional abilities


improve with age (Carstensen et al., 2000; Mayer et al., 2000). Moreover, the present studyprovided some evidence that emotional abilities maybe differentially related to certain insecureattachment orientations across the life course. Fearful-avoidant attachment was negatively relatedto emotion perception abilities as a function of age. Although a limited effect, the younger, fearfulpersons� improved emotional perception is consistent with evidence from an experimental studythat fearful college students were more vigilant in the perception of happy and angry facial ex-pressions than preoccupied or dismissing-avoidants (Niedenthal, Brauer, Robin, & Innes-Ker,2002). Further analyses of the current data revealed that the age by fearful attachment interactioneffect was particularly strong for the pictures sub-scale and especially attributions of anger andhappiness (as in Niedenthal et al., 2002, where younger fearful individuals were particularlysensitive in anchoring anger to environmental stimuli). Future research should aim to replicatethis finding and also to explore the underlying processes (e.g. motivation, attention, etc.). Sincemeasurement of attachment orientations was not in terms of exclusive types or categories, butrather in terms of interrelated dimensions (orientations), further research should also test whetherthe use of exclusive types predicts emotional differences.

4.1. Age and gender differences in EI

The results from this study provide further confirmation of the developmental criterion ofemotional abilities (e.g. Mayer et al., 2000) as older individuals scored higher on most of the EIcomponents (facilitation, understanding and management branches). However, to fully test thelife cycle of adult emotionality, research into emotional intelligence in older age is necessary.The findings regarding females� superiority solely in the perception of emotion and the expe-

riential branch are in keeping with a long and inconclusive tradition of gender differences in non-verbal abilities (e.g. Hall, 1987). However, the fact that there were no significant differences in theother aspects of EI gives credence to the MSCEIT test in that it seems to minimise suggestibilityeffects (i.e. usually the observed gender differences are due to females� expressivity and reportingcompliance).

4.2. Limitations

As with all correlational work one important caveat is that no causal inferences can be made onthe basis of the analyses presented in this study between attachment and emotional intelligence. Infact, it is likely that both constructs are influenced by the same emotion regulation processes thatinfuse cognitive with affective biases. A further limitation concerns the employment of a morereliable measure of adult attachment. In this study, the relationship questionnaire was chosen inorder to address questions involving Bartholomew�s typology. However, recently developed di-mensional scales (e.g. Fraley et al., 2000) can be used so that differences in the four attachmenttypes can be examined.

4.3. Future directions

The results of the current study point to a number of interesting next steps. Firstly, futureresearch should distinguish between cognitive and affective oriented emotional abilities across the


life stages. Clinical research could test whether therapeutic interventions that target the cognitiveor emotional aspect of adult attachment differentially could be more effective for each insecurestyle.In terms of methodology and operationalisation of emotional intelligence abilities, future re-

search using self-report methods could look closer at dynamic aspects of emotional intelligenceabilities (emotion differentiation and emotion regulation) as suggested by emerging themes ofemotion research (e.g. emotion differentiation, Feldman-Barrett & Gross, 2001). The interplay ofcognitive and affective components of attachment orientations can be a fruitful avenue of researchalso from the perspective of social-cognitive neuroscience (Oshner & Lieberman, 2001).The interaction of cognitive and affective components of attachment orientations is an area in

which more research is needed also within relational contexts (Collins, 1996). Secure and insecureattachment orientations play a central role in empathic accuracy in relationships (Simpson, Ickes,& Grich, 1999) and it is very likely that differences in emotional intelligence abilities influenceother aspects of the proximal level of interaction in close relationships (Fincham, 1995). Forinstance, there is recent evidence that emotion management abilities predict satisfaction withrelationships above personality differences (Lopes, Salovey, & Straus, 2003) and further workcould compare older, happily married couples with less well-adjusted ones. Finally, the emotionalabilities of successful and unsuccessful relationships across the life-span (be it from an attachmentperspective or not) should be the object of future research as there is very limited information of alongitudinal nature.

5. Conclusion

The study provided evidence for individual differences in emotional intelligence abilities interms of attachment orientations and provided a validation for the new emotional intelligenceconstruct. The results highlighted differences between the avoidant attachment orientations andage stage differences. These results are particularly convincing given the different methods em-ployed to measure EI and attachment orientations (ability and self-report measures).

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Victoria Mitchell and Jean Yeadon for their assistance withdata collection and Dr. Youngmee Kim and Paulo Lopes for their constructive comments onearlier drafts of this paper.

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