Pain is an interpersonal and inherently social experience. Pain perception and administration of medical treatment all occur in a particular environmental and social context. Early environmental influences, and early learning experiences and interactions, condition the body\'s response to different threats (like pain), ultimately shaping the underlying neurophysiology. These early interactions and experiences also determine what situations are perceived as threatening, as well as our belief in our own ability to self-manage, and our belief in others to offer support, during perceived threats. These beliefs intrinsically drive the combination of behaviours that emerge in response to perceived threats, including pain. Such behaviours can be categorised into attachment styles. In this interdisciplinary review, we synthesise and summarise evidence from the neurobiological, psychobiological, psychosocial and psychobehavioural fields, to describe how these beliefs are embedded in the brain\'s prediction models to generate a series of expectations/perceptions around the level of safety/threat in different contexts. As such, these beliefs may predict how one experiences, and responds to, pain; with potentially significant implications for the development and management of chronic pain. Little attention has been directed to the effect of adult attachment style on pain in research studies and in the clinical setting. Using interdisciplinary evidence, we argue why we think this interaction merits further consideration and research. PERSPECTIVE: This review explores the influence of attachment styles on pain perception, suggesting a link between social connections and chronic pain development. It aligns with recent calls to emphasise the social context in pain research and advocates for increased focus on adult attachment styles in research and clinical practice.

OBJECTIVE: Explore the mediating effect of serenity in the relationships between attachment styles and death anxiety among older adults DESIGN: A descriptive correlational research design following Strengthening Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology guidelines.
METHODS: Data were collected from 250 older adults attending three clubs.
METHODS: Arabic Scale of Death Anxiety, Brief Serenity Scale, and Revised Adult Attachment Scale were used to collect data.
RESULTS: Most participants exhibited high levels of serenity, with varying degrees of attachment styles and death anxiety. Correlation analysis indicates significant negative associations between death anxiety and serenity, as well as attachment styles. Secure attachment styles were positively correlated with serenity and negatively with death anxiety. Path analysis revealed that serenity partially mediated the relationship between attachment styles and death anxiety.
CONCLUSIONS: Fostering secure attachments and promoting serenity to mitigate death anxiety in older adults, enhancing later-life psychological well-being through informed interventions.

The COVID-19 pandemic led many couples to stay at home together with minimal contact with others. As social distancing measures reduced contact with outside households, many partners could seek support only from one another. In two studies using a sequential mixed methods design, we investigated support-seeking behaviors in romantic relationships during COVID-19. In the qualitative study, semi-structured interviews (n = 48) showed differences in how and why partners seek support with an initial consideration of the role of attachment. We identified the following themes: direct support-seeking, indirect support-seeking, (in)dependence, and gender dynamics. In the quantitative study (n = 588), high COVID-19 worry, high attachment anxiety, and low attachment avoidance were associated with more support-seeking. Interestingly, we also found that when COVID-19 worry was high, individuals high in attachment avoidance were more likely to report seeking support. The paper provides a unique insight into the impact of COVID-19 on support-seeking behaviors in romantic relationships.

BACKGROUND: Emotion regulation, the process by which individuals manage and modify their emotional experiences, expressions, and responses to adaptively navigate and cope with various situations, plays a crucial role in daily life. Our study investigates the variations in emotion regulation strategies among individuals with different attachment styles (AS). Specifically, we examine how individuals with secure, anxious, avoidant, and fearful attachment styles effectively utilize cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression to regulate their emotions.
METHODS: A total of n = 98 adults were instructed to attend, reappraise, or suppress their emotions while viewing negative and neutral images from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS) in an experimental emotion regulation task. After completing the task, participants rated the valence and arousal elicited by the images. Attachment styles were measured using the ECR-12 questionnaire and then categorized into four AS.
RESULTS: Our study revealed that individuals with secure AS (n = 39) effectively reduced displeasure through cognitive reappraisal but experienced levels of displeasure with expressive suppression. Anxious AS (n = 16) individuals successfully reduced displeasure using cognitive reappraisal but struggled to regulate arousal and effectively use expressive suppression. Avoidant AS (n = 24) individuals could reduce displeasure with both strategies but experienced high arousal during suppression attempts. Fearful AS (n = 19) individuals effectively regulated both displeasure and arousal using either strategy. However, Secure AS individuals showed superior reappraisal efficacy, significantly reducing arousal levels compared to the Fearful AS group. Both Secure and Avoidant AS groups experienced higher valence during reappraisal relative to a baseline, indicating a decrease in displeasure.
CONCLUSIONS: Individuals with different AS exhibit variations in the effectiveness of their use of emotion regulation strategies. Our findings reinforce the significance of AS in shaping emotion regulation processes and emphasize the need for tailored approaches to support individuals with different attachment orientations.

Violence in intimate partner relationships among young adults has become a global health problem given its prevalence and its negative effects on physical and psychological well-being. The severity of the problem has given rise to a large body of research that has attempted to find the variables associated with victimization in young couples (for example, attachment style, emotional regulation skills or empathy, among others). Moreover, traditionally, many of these investigations have only considered the point of view of female victims within a gender violence approach. However, in recent times, more and more evidence of the existence of mutual violence in young relationships has been found. These findings, combined with simplistic explanations of the phenomenon, have proven to be insufficient to prevent it. In this context, the main objective of this study was to investigate how some variables linked to dating violence interact with each other, modifying the mutual violence young people suffer and exercise. Considering this, different instruments were administered (the Experience in Close Relationships Scale (ECR-R); Difficulties in Emotional Regulation Scale (DERS-E); Basic Empathy Scale (BES); and Multidimensional Couple Violence Scale (EMVN)) to a sample of 557 young Chileans. The analysis of the results, based on the construction of a moderated mediation model, reveals that difficulties in emotional regulation are a predictor of violence in intimate partner relationships, whose direct and indirect effects on the violence exercised can be moderated by that partner\'s attachment style. The findings also reveal that there is no association between empathy and violence, and they highlight that both men and women are victims and aggressors at the same time. This demonstrate the need to consider prevention and intervention strategies aimed at both sexes, since intimate partner violence is mutual and reciprocal.

OBJECTIVE: Gestational diabetes (GDM) is a prevalent complication in pregnancy that requires effective self-management, which can be influenced by illness perceptions. Moreover, behavioral regulation can be affected by attachment styles. Thus, our study aimed to identify common GDM perception profiles and test their association with attachment styles.
METHODS: In this cross-sectional study, 446 women completed the Relationship Questionnaire (RQ), the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire (BIPQ), and additional items about GDM diagnosis, information, competence, adherence, behavioral change. Latent profile analysis (LPA) was conducted to determine GDM perception profiles. Multinomial logistic regression followed to calculate the association between GDM perception profiles and attachment styles.
RESULTS: Three distinct profiles emerged: coping (n = 172, 38.6%)-characterized by the most positive GDM perception, burdened (n = 222, 49.8%)-indicating the emotional burden of the disease, and resourceless (n = 52, 11.7%)-reporting lack of resources (i.e. information, competence). Women with insecure attachment styles were more likely to develop a burdened GDM perception profile. Specifically, the expression of a fearful (OR = 1.184 [95%CI: 1.03; 1.36], p = 0.016) and a preoccupied (OR = 1.154 [95%CI: 1.01; 1.32], p = 0.037) attachment style increased the likelihood for a burdened perception profile, while a secure attachment style (OR = 10.791 [95%CI: 0.65; 0.96], p = 0.017) decreased likelihood for developing resourceless GDM perception profile.
CONCLUSIONS: Three GDM perception profiles were identified and the role of attachment styles in shaping these perceptions was confirmed. Further studies are needed to investigate whether a tailored treatment approach based on the predominant attachment style could lead to more positive GDM perceptions, improved glycemic control, and better perinatal outcomes.

Partner preferences are an important differential in relationship formation and evolutionary fitness, and vary according to individual, ecological, and social factors. In this study, we evaluated the variation in preference for intelligence, kindness, physical attractiveness, health, and socioeconomic level among individuals of different sexes and sexual orientations in a Brazilian sample. We analyzed the preference scores of 778 heterosexual, bisexual, and homosexual men and women in three budgeted mate design tasks (low vs. medium vs. high budget) and their association with sociosexuality, attachment styles, homogamy, and willingness to engage in short- and long-term relationships. Results indicated a global trait preference order, with intelligence ranking first, followed by kindness, physical attractiveness, health, and lastly by socioeconomic status. Typical sex differences were observed mostly within the heterosexual group, and specific combinations of sex and sexual orientation were linked to variation in preference for physical attractiveness, kindness, and socioeconomic status. We also found unique associations of the other variables with partner preferences and with willingness to engage in short- or long-term relationships. By exploring the partner preferences of non-heterosexual individuals from a Latin American country, an underrepresented group in evolutionary psychology research, our results help understand the universal and specific factors that guide partner preferences and human sexual behavior.

Predicting attachment styles using AI algorithms remains relatively unexplored in scientific literature. This study addresses this gap by employing EEG data to evaluate the effectiveness of ROCKET-driven features versus classic features, both analyzed using the XGBoost machine learning algorithm, for classifying \'secure\' or \'insecure\' attachment styles.Participants, fourth-year engineering students aged 20-35, first completed the ECR-R questionnaire. A subset then underwent EEG sessions while performing the Arrow Flanker Task, receiving success or failure feedback for each trial.Our findings reveal the effectiveness of both feature sets. The dataset with ROCKET-derived features demonstrated an 88.41% True Positive Rate (TPR) in classifying \'insecure\' attachment styles, compared to the classic features dataset, which achieved a notable TPR as well. Visual representations further support ROCKET-derived features\' proficiency in identifying insecure attachment tendencies, while the classic features exhibited limitations in classification accuracy. Although the ROCKET-derived features exhibited higher TPR, the classic features also presented a substantial predictive ability.In conclusion, this study advances the integration of AI in psychological assessments, emphasizing the significance of feature selection for specific datasets and applications. While both feature sets effectively classified EEG-based attachment styles, the ROCKET-derived features demonstrated a superior performance across multiple metrics, making them the preferred choice for this study.

The purpose of this review is to discuss how attachment theory can be applied to explain sexual violence. Specifically, it discusses how the development of certain risk factors contributes to these behaviors and how attachment-based models can be used to address this issue through prevention and therapeutic interventions.
Recent research demonstrates that individuals who commit sexual offenses have higher rates of insecure attachment styles and that these styles are associated with a number of criminogenic risk factors associated with sexual offending. Such risk factors include cognitive processing difficulties, affect dysregulation, and challenges in interpersonal relationships, among others. Fortunately, treatment interventions have been shown to foster more secure attachment styles and reduce these risk factors. Attachment theory is a viable theory to both understand and intervene with those who have committed sexual violence to reduce the risk factors associated with sexual violence.

UNASSIGNED: Attachment styles are crucial in human relationships and have been explored through neurophysiological responses and EEG data analysis. This study investigates the potential of EEG data in predicting and differentiating secure and insecure attachment styles, contributing to the understanding of the neural basis of interpersonal dynamics.
UNASSIGNED: We engaged 27 participants in our study, employing an XGBoost classifier to analyze EEG data across various feature domains, including time-domain, complexity-based, and frequency-based attributes.
UNASSIGNED: The study found significant differences in the precision of attachment style prediction: a high precision rate of 96.18% for predicting insecure attachment, and a lower precision of 55.34% for secure attachment. Balanced accuracy metrics indicated an overall model accuracy of approximately 84.14%, taking into account dataset imbalances.
UNASSIGNED: These results highlight the challenges in using EEG patterns for attachment style prediction due to the complex nature of attachment insecurities. Individuals with heightened perceived insecurity predominantly aligned with the insecure attachment category, suggesting a link to their increased emotional reactivity and sensitivity to social cues. The study underscores the importance of time-domain features in prediction accuracy, followed by complexity-based features, while noting the lesser impact of frequency-based features. Our findings advance the understanding of the neural correlates of attachment and pave the way for future research, including expanding demographic diversity and integrating multimodal data to refine predictive models.