The role of attachment security in error self-monitoring: Is a social component necessary?

We describe results from an empirical study of neural correlates associated with avoidant and anxious attachment. Participants were given a task designed to produce a high rate of errors while their brain waves were measured using electroencephalography (EEG). In the current study, we examined the relationship of anxious and avoidant attachment to the Error Related Negativity (ERN), an event related potential (ERP) waveform that is thought to be linked to response-error monitoring and emotional-regulation monitoring, using multiple regression analysis. Thirty-three participants completed the Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised (ECR-R) measure of attachment security and then performed a simple flanker task while EEG was recorded. We found that individuals high in avoidance showed a reduced ERN during this task, despite the lack of social or emotional cues in the task. Thus individuals who are more avoidantly attached are demonstrating less self-monitoring via a perceptual correlate of error detection during a task that elicits error-commission, even in situations devoid of social content.