Developmental Psychobiology

Brief Report
Jessica L. Borelli1
Jessica L. West2
Nicole Y. Weekes3
Dismissing Child Attachment
1
Michael J. Crowley4 and Discordance for Subjective
Department of Psychology
Pomona College
E-mail: jessica.borelli@pomona.edu
and Neuroendocrine Responses
2
Department of Psychology
and Neuroscience
to Vulnerability
Duke University
3
Department of Neuroscience ABSTRACT: Emerging evidence suggests that as with adults, dismissing children
Pomona College underreport their psychological distress relative to physiological indicators of
their experience (startle response, neural signals). In this report, we extend these
4
Yale Child Study Center observations to neuroendocrine reactivity. One hundred and six 8–12-year-old
Yale University children completed the Child Attachment Interview and a computer-based para-
digm comprised of vignettes reflecting vulnerability in interpersonal contexts.
Dismissing children’s cortisol responses remained comparable from pre-to-post
paradigm, while secure children’s cortisol responses decreased from pre-to-post
paradigm. Furthermore, compared to secure children, dismissing children
reported less distress than their cortisol response would suggest. Implications for
dismissing children’s coping and self-regulation are discussed. ß 2013 Wiley
Periodicals, Inc. Dev Psychobiol 56: 584–591, 2014.

Keywords: attachment; dismissal; emotion; cortisol

INTRODUCTION (Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist, & Target, 2002). The IWM is

Attachment theorists posit that variations in caregiver
sensitivity lead to differences in the quality of child-
ren’s internal working models (IWMs), more specifical-
ly, their set of beliefs about their caregivers’ and
others’ responsiveness (Bowlby, 1980). Consistent, sen-
sitive caregiving is associated with secure attachment,
whereas inconsistent or insensitive caregiving is associ-
ated with insecure attachment (Ainsworth, Blehar,
Waters, & Wall, 1978; van IJzendoorn, 1995). Infant
attachment predicts the quality of the individual’s
IWM throughout development (e.g., Waters, Merrick,
Treboux, Crowell, & Albersheim, 2000). Further, inter-
actions between attachment figures and infants are
thought to provide the foundation for the development
of emotion regulation, initially occurring dyadically
and then transitioning to an intra-individual process
Manuscript Received: 15 September 2012
Manuscript Accepted: 4 February 2013
Correspondence to: J. Borelli
Article first published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com): 30 September 2013
DOI 10.1002/dev.21107
ß 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
thought to influence emotion regulation throughout life
(Cassidy, 1994).
According to theory, avoidant attachment,1 the most
common form of insecure attachment, results when
caregivers ignore, reject, or fail to respond to the
infant’s distress (Ainsworth et al., 1978). Infants classi-
fied as avoidant appear affectless following brief sepa-
rations from caregivers (Ainsworth et al., 1978; Main,
2000), yet display physiological signs of distress (Span-
gler & Grossmann, 1993; Sroufe & Waters, 1977). This
observed divergence between behavioral and physiolog-
ical response is perplexing—if these infants are stressed
by the caregiver’s absence, why do they avoid the care-
giver upon his/her return? Researchers argue that avoi-
dant infants’ suppression of distress preserves the
rejecting attachment figure’s availability (Ainsworth
et al., 1978; Main, 1981). Though putatively adaptive
in the short term, across development this type of
response may confer risk, as emotion suppression
strategies tend to paradoxically prolong and intensify
1
Referred to as avoidant during infancy and early childhood and as
dismissing in middle childhood and beyond.
Developmental Psychobiology
negative affective experiences (Bowlby, 1980; Fraley &
Bonanno, 2004; Gross & Levenson, 1997). Successful
regulation of a stress response, particularly one utiliz-
ing reappraisal strategies, likely necessitates some
awareness that an emotional response has occurred
(Gross, 1998).
After early childhood, IWMs are often measured
using semi-structured interviews. Interviewees describe
the quality of their childhood relationships with care-
givers, providing specific examples substantiating these
descriptions (e.g., Adult Attachment Interview, AAI;
Child Attachment Interview, CAI; George, Kaplan, &
Main, 1996; Shmueli-Goetz, Target, Datta, & Fonagy,
2004;). On attachment interviews, dismissing individua-
ls can restrict their attention to attachment-related
themes in multiple ways. They may characterize their
childhood relationships with caregivers in positive
terms, yet fail to adequately support these statements.
They may also report limited memory for their child-
hood or deny experiences of vulnerability (e.g., being
rejected, hurt, or sick; Hesse, 2008).
Consistent with infancy research, dismissing adults
show greater physiological arousal than do secure
adults during the AAI, an in-depth interview that
probes attachment themes (Dozier & Kobak, 1992;
Roisman, Tsai & Chiang, 2004). Extending this work
to school-aged children, White et al. (2012) observed
that dismissal was associated with greater divergence
of subjective and neural responses to simulated peer
rejection. By placing a neural measure (event-related
potential response) and subjective distress on the
same common metric (z-score), White et al. (2012)
were able to evaluate the divergence of subjective and
neural response using the individual difference be-
tween the two scores. White et al. (2012) observed
that the greater the dismissal, the more the child’s
subjective response underestimated his/her neural re-
sponse. Drawing on the same sample assessed 3 years
prior, David, Crowley, Snavely, & Mayes (2013) ob-
served that compared to secure children, dismissing
children reported less distress than indicated by their
startle response during threat.
Physiological stress reactivity involves multiple sys-
tems, both physiological (e.g., autonomic nervous sys-
tem; ANS) and psychological (e.g., perception of
emotion and cognitive interpretations). Because stress
reactivity is multidetermined, it may best be assessed
with multiple indices. For example, the hypothalamic–
pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis is part of the neuroendo-
crine system, which helps to regulate individuals’
responses to stress by producing hormones that have
downstream effects on the ANS. Cortisol, the primary
output of the HPA axis, is a widely studied biomarker
indexing the stress response to specific challenging
Dismissing Attachment and Neuroendocrine Response 585
events (Pollard, 1995), but also varies diurnally, with
values highest in the morning, declining during waking
hours and reaching their lowest values in the late even-
ing (Kirschbaum & Hellhammer, 1994; Shirtcliff et al.,
2012). Thus both reactive and diurnal changes can be
significant sources of individual difference. Cortisol
can be derived from blood (serum cortisol) or saliva
(Levine, Zagoory-Sharon, Feldman, Lewis, & Weller,
2007), but these measures do not always correspond
highly (Levine et al., 2007). When using cortisol
change as an index of stress reactivity, it is important
to consider diurnal variation (Adam, Hawkley,
Kudielka, & Caccioppo, 2006). In particular, because
cortisol values normally decline across the day, not
only an increase, but also a failure to decline, may indi-
cate that the HPA system has been activated.
Central to the present report, HPA axis activation
holds promise as a sensitive indicator of reactivity to
stressors that can distinguish among stress responses of
secure versus insecure individuals. For instance, corti-
sol reactivity differs as a function of attachment classi-
fication for infants (e.g., Gunnar, Colton, & Stansbury,
1992), school-aged children (Borelli et al., 2010), and
adults (Rifkin-Graboi, 2008; Adam & Gunnar, 2001).
Individual differences in cortisol reactivity vary by at-
tachment classification in response to an attachment as-
sessment itself (such as an attachment interview,
Borelli et al., 2010, or a separation from the primary
caregiver, Gunnar, Mangelsdorf, Larson, & Hertsgaard,
1989, 1991; Hertsgaard, Gunnar, Erickson, & Nach-
mias, 1995; Spangler & Grossmann, 1993) as well as
in response to other laboratory tasks (Nachmias, Gun-
nar, Mangelsdorf, Parritz, & Buss, 1996; Rifkin-Graboi,
2008). Infant attachment predicts diurnal decreases
across a day spent in childcare (Badanes, Dimitrieva, &
Watamura, 2012).
Here we extend work on cortisol and attachment
to divergent subjective-neuroendocrine reactivity in dis-
missing children. Because reactions to vulnerability are
central to attachment theory (Bowlby, 1980), we exam-
ined children’s subjective and neuroendocrine reactions
to stressful scenarios involving emotional (sadness and
fear) and physical (illness and injury) vulnerability. We
hypothesized that compared to secure children, dismiss-
ing children would show greater neuroendocrine reac-
tivity to the stressful scenarios (Hypothesis One) while
reporting less distress than their physiological response
would suggest (Hypothesis Two).
METHODS
Participants
One hundred-six 8–12 year-olds participated in two sessions
2 weeks or less apart. Children (53% girls, Mage ¼ 9.83,
586 Borelli et al.
SDage ¼ 1.49) and their primary caregivers (81% female,
Mage ¼ 37.91, SDage ¼ 6.28) were recruited via internet post-
ings and flyers. The sample was ethnically (39% Hispanic,
34% Caucasian, 18% African American, 5% Other, 3%
Asian, and 1% Native American) and socioeconomically di-
verse (49% reported annual income < $40,000). Experiment-
ers informed children that they could refuse to participate in
any part of the study if they wished. The Pomona College
IRB approved this research.
Procedure
During the first session, children provided written assent and
parents provided written informed consent. Parents reported
on family demographics and child participants completed the
CAI. The mean length of time between the first session (CAI
visit) and the second session (VVP visit) was 5.78 days
(SD ¼ 4.48). Most second sessions (76.3%) occurred between
noon and 6 pm and on a non-school day; 67% occurred on a
non-school day (weekend, holiday, or summer/winter vaca-
tion). Children provided a salivary cortisol sample 30 min af-
ter arriving, completed the vulnerability vignettes paradigm
(VVP; with subjective response assessment), and then provid-
ed a second salivary cortisol sample post-VVP. Length of
time elapsing between first and second sessions was unrelated
to child age, gender, attachment security, and self-reported
negative emotion, r’s ¼ .10–.08.
Measures
Attachment Interview. The CAI (Shmueli-Goetz et al., 2004),
a 19-question semi-structured interview for 8–13 year-olds,
assesses school-aged children’s attachment quality with re-
spect to each of their primary caregivers. Children respond to
questions probing current and past experiences with primary
caregivers, as well as their overall assessment of the qualities
of these relationships. CAI coders rate videotapes and verba-
tim transcripts on eight 9-point scales (e.g., Idealization, Bal-
ance of positive/negative references to attachment figures).
Based on interview ratings on these eight scales as well as
the children’s non-verbal behavior during the interview,
raters classify children into one of four categories with
respect to each caregiver: secure, dismissing, preoccupied,
and disorganized.
The CAI has established reliability and validity in both
clinical and normative samples (Shmueli-Goetz, Target,
Fonagy, & Datta, 2008; Target, Fonagy, & Shmueli-Goetz,
2003). CAI classification is not associated with age, gender,
socioeconomic status, ethnicity, verbal IQ, expressive lan-
guage ability, or whether the child lives with one or two
parents (Target et al., 2003). In this study, a non-experimenter
coder certified as reliable on the CAI coded all interviews
with reliability performed on 16 cases coded by a second
non-experimenter certified coder (the study PI) (4-way:
k ¼ .91, p < .001, Intraclass correlation coefficient for narra-
tive coherence scale ¼ .83, p < .001).
Vulnerability Vignettes Paradigm (VVP). The VVP was cre-
ated expressly for this study (see Borelli, 2009). Children
Developmental Psychobiology
were presented with brief (two sentence) written vignettes
that appeared on a computer screen. Vignettes were presented
both visually and aurally (if the child desired it) to children.
Vignettes depicted vulnerability (physical hurt, sickness, sad-
ness, and fear); a set of neutral vignettes was included as a
manipulation check. Children responded to 15 total vignettes
(12 vulnerability and 3 neutral), each of which involved gen-
der-matched hypothetical other children. The names of the
hypothetical children described in the vignettes were drawn
from the Social Security Administration’s database of the
most popular names for children born in 2000 (the mean birth
year for children participating in the study). Vignettes were
administered in one of two quasi-random orders to which
children were randomly assigned.
Children completed the VVP on a computer while seated
in a comfortable chair. Experimental stimuli (vignettes and
follow-up probes) were presented using E-Prime 2.0 on
a computer screen (Psychology Software Tools, 2002;
Schneider, Eschman, & Zuccolotto 2002). After an acclima-
tion period (290-second nature video), children were given
instructions and an example vignette before beginning the
VVP. Children completed five blocks of vignettes, each con-
taining three scenarios regarding one vulnerability category
(e.g., sadness): one vignette described the experience of vul-
nerability (e.g., ‘‘Taylor did not get picked to be on a sports
team at school and he felt sad’’), one described opting out of
an activity because of the vulnerability (e.g., ‘‘Bill got a bad
grade on a test. He felt really sad, started crying, and went to
the bathroom’’), and the third described the child asking a
parent for assistance with it (e.g., ‘‘While at a party, someone
said something mean to Brandon and he felt really sad. He
called his parent and asked to get picked up early.’’) The
VVP took 45 min in total.
Self-Reported Subjective Distress. Subjective distress was
assessed with the Self Assessment Manikin (SAM; Bradley &
Lang, 1994; Lang, 1980), a pictorial rating system featuring
human-like figures that assess affective valence (unpleasant–
pleasant). Children were presented with the figures and asked
to select how they feel right now. Figures were augmented
with the words ‘‘very happy, pleased, good’’ next to the hap-
piest looking figure and ‘‘very unhappy, scared, sad’’ next to
the saddest looking figure. Higher scores indicated more neg-
ative emotion. The SAM has documented reliability and va-
lidity in adults and children (McManis, Bradley, Berg,
Cuthbert, & Lang, Bradley & Lang, 1994; 2001). Some par-
ticipants’ responses were not recorded due to computer mal-
function (n ¼ 2).
Cortisol Reactivity. We collected samples before and after the
VVP and recorded time of day for each. Prior to the first
collection, participants rinsed their mouths with water. Five
minutes later, saliva was collected using Salivette collection
devices (Sarstedt, Newton, NC). Experimenters placed cotton
swabs in the child’s mouth for 2 min and then extracted them
using a gloved hand. The second collection occurred 15 min
after the VVP. Caregivers reported on the child’s eating
and physical activity over the past day as well as current
Developmental Psychobiology
medication use, variables later used as covariates. This strate-
gy allowed us to address some of the measurement issues
inherent in the use of salivary cortisol as an index of stress
reactivity. Cortisol samples were frozen at 208C. Cortisol
concentrations were determined in duplicate using a fluores-
cent enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique,
with a 96-well plate coated in monoclonal cortisol antibodies
(Salimetrics, State College, PA), and expressed as micrograms
per deciliter (dl ¼ 100 ml). High (1.52 mg/dl) and low
(0.50 mg/dl) concentration quality assessment samples were
determined with interassay coefficients of variation of 2.9
and 13.5%, respectively. Some samples were excluded from
statistical analyses due to insufficient saliva (n ¼ 14) or
inconsistent assay results (n ¼ 6).
RESULTS
Table 1 reports means and standard deviations for all
primary study variables by attachment classification. In
this sample, 21 children (20%) were classified as dis-
missing, 67 children (63%) as secure, 10 children (9%)
as preoccupied, and eight children (8%) as disorga-
nized. Attachment classification was non-significantly
related to child age, t(88) ¼ .45, p ¼ .66, or gender,
x2(1) ¼ 2.76, p ¼ .10. We restricted all subsequent
analyses to the children classified as secure or dismiss-
ing (n ¼ 88; cf. Borelli et al., 2012). The raw cortisol
data were positively skewed—herein we report the
results of statistical analyses using raw data but analy-
ses using log-transformed values revealed an identical
pattern of results. In contrast to our expectation, the
sample as a whole significantly decreased in salivary
cortisol from pre-to-post VVP, paired samples t-test,
t(88) ¼ 3.48, p < .001 (pretest M ¼ 0.11, SD ¼ 0.06;
posttest M ¼ 0.09, SD ¼ 0.05). Cortisol levels did not
Table 1. Means (Standard Deviations) of Attachment
and Emotion Related Variables by Attachment
Classification
Total Dsa Sa
Measures (N ¼ 88) (n ¼ 21) (n ¼ 67)
Age 9.79 (1.54) 9.83 (1.58) 9.67 (1.44)
CAI narrative coh 5.73 (1.31) 6.26 (.90) 3.94 (.83)
Subjective distress 2.96 (.81) 3.03 (.81) 2.75 (.77)
Pre-stressor Cortisolb .11 (.06) .10 (.06) .11 (.06)
Post-stressor Cortisolb .09 (.05) .10 (.06) .08 (.04)
Divergence score .09 (.1.44) .59 (1.43) .34 (1.37)
Note: Narrative coh, narrative coherence, a continuous measure of
attachment security on the CAI.
a
Ds, dismissing, S, secure.
b FIGURE 1 Secure and dismissing children’s pre- and post-
Cortisol expressed as mg/dl; participants missing data for either
cortisol assessment (n ¼ 22) excluded from all subsequent analyses.
Dismissing Attachment and Neuroendocrine Response 587
differ among children who participated on a school day
versus a holiday/weekend (tpre-VVP cortisol ¼ .47,
p ¼ .63; tpost-VVP cortisol ¼ .19, p ¼ .85). Children
with missing cortisol data did not differ from other
children in terms of their age, self-reported negative
emotion, subjective emotional response, or attachment
security.
Children’s self-reported distress was significantly
higher in response to the vulnerability vignettes as
opposed to the neutral vignettes, t(88) ¼ 6.61,
p < .001(neutral M ¼ 2.28, SD ¼ 0.92; posttest M ¼
2.96, SD ¼ 0.81), suggesting that in terms of subjective
emotional response, the vulnerability vignettes induced
negative emotion.
Attachment and Cortisol Reactivity to Stressor
We conducted a repeated measures ANCOVA with pre-
and post-stressor cortisol as the dependent variable:
controlling for time of day of cortisol sampling,
F(1, 66) ¼ 0.14, p ¼ .76, and VVP condition, F(1,
66) ¼ 2.22, p ¼ .16, attachment classification was sig-
nificantly associated with change in cortisol values,
F(1, 66) ¼ 6.44, p < .05, h_ p 2 ¼ 0.09. Paired samples
t-tests revealed that while secure children’s cortisol lev-
els decreased from pre- to post-stressor, t(46) ¼ 4.98,
p < .001 dismissing children’s cortisol levels remained
stable from pre- to post-stressor, t(20) ¼ 0.46, p ¼ .65
(Fig. 1). Dismissing and secure children’s pre-stressor
cortisol levels were comparable, t(66) ¼ 0.28, p ¼ .78.
Moreover, including potential confounds in the model
did not change the results (having exercised that day,
taking medication, hours elapsed since having eaten,
having eaten meat that day), F(1, 66) ¼ 5.33, p < .05,
h_ p 2 ¼ 0.13.
VVP salivary cortisol levels.
588 Borelli et al.
Attachment and Divergence of
Subjective-Neuroendocrine Response
We hypothesized that dismissing children would report
less distress than suggested by their physiological
response. Following our previous work, we created a
variable signifying the divergence of subjective-neuro-
endocrine response (see White et al., 2012, e.g., and
descriptions of this methodology). A measure of diver-
gence reflects the extent to which two measures put
on the same metric (z-score) differ from one another.
Because we were interested in cortisol reactivity, we
first computed a cortisol change score by subtracting
participants’ post-stressor cortisol levels from their
pre-stressor cortisol levels (neuroendocrine response).
We also computed a mean subjective distress score
by averaging participants’ self-reported emotion to all
vulnerability vignettes (subjective response). Next we
confirmed that our two variables were not significantly
associated with one another, r ¼ 0.13, p ¼ .31. Then
we computed a measure of divergence of neuroendo-
crine response and self-reported negative emotion by
z-standardizing each dimension before subtracting the
latter from the former. Higher positive scores reflect
greater divergence, or the tendency to have stress-
induced cortisol changes suggesting higher distress
than indicated by self-report (‘‘underreporting dis-
tress’’); more negative scores imply the converse.
After controlling for time of day of cortisol sam-
pling, F(1, 66) ¼ 0.17, p ¼ .92, child age, F(1, 66) ¼
2.15, p ¼ .15, and child gender, F(1, 66) ¼ 1.12,
p ¼ .29, attachment classification was significantly
associated with divergence, F(1, 66) ¼ 5.87, p < .05,
h_ p 2 ¼ 0.08. Dismissing attachment was associated with
greater divergence scores (i.e., more underreporting of
distress).
DISCUSSION
We examined neuroendocrine reactivity to a social
provocation (VVP) and evaluated the divergence of
neuroendocrine response and subjective report among
children classified as secure or dismissing in attach-
ment. Similar to other studies in children examining
cortisol reactivity (Gunnar, Talge, & Herrera, 2009),
across all subjects, mean cortisol response decreased
from pre- to post-stressor. That the VVP did not yield
increases in salivary cortisol constrains the conclusions
we can draw from our investigation, as discussed
below. However, we observed differing patterns of
cortisol response across groups. While the groups
were comparable in cortisol levels at pre-assessment,
secure children showed a significant decrease in
Developmental Psychobiology
cortisol response to the VVP, whereas dismissing
children maintained their cortisol level across the
visit.
Two explanations for these effects seem plausible.
First, it may be that coming to the laboratory was more
stressful than the stressor paradigm itself. In this
case, the decrease in cortisol levels shown by secure
children might represent habituation to the laboratory
context, whereas the lack of cortisol decrease in dis-
missing children might reflect their failure to habituate
to the laboratory context. Alternatively, the findings
could reflect a typical diurnal decline in cortisol values
among secure children, and attenuation of such a de-
cline among dismissing children due to a predicted re-
action to the VVP stressor. The current study cannot
differentiate between these two explanations. Studies
employing stressors that reliably elicit a stress response
will be better positioned to adjudicate between these
two possibilities. Finally, it bears repeating that elicit-
ing an elevated cortisol response is notoriously difficult
in this age range (cf., Borelli et al., 2010; Gunnar,
Wewerka, Frenn, Long, & Griggs, 2009; Klimes-
Dougan, Hastings, Granger, Usher, & Zahn-Waxler,
2001; Stroud et al., 2009). Clearly we can say that the
secure and dismissing children showed differential cor-
tisol responding across the two time points of our labo-
ratory visit.
Our findings also extend work on divergence of sub-
jective-physiological response in children with different
attachment classifications (Borelli et al., 2013; White
et al., 2012) to HPA axis function. Again acknowledg-
ing the lack of expected increase in cortisol across the
VVP, relative to secure children, dismissing children’s
subjective reports of distress underestimated their
cortisol response. Evidence continues to accumulate
suggesting that dismissing children, like their adult
counterparts (e.g., Pianta, Egeland, & Adam, 1996),
underreport their distress in a variety of contexts.
Dismissing children may be unaware of their emotional
state, or though aware, they may be unable or unwilling
to express these feelings. Underreporting may translate
into a lesser likelihood of getting noticed when dis-
tressed, which, while purportedly adaptive within the
dismissing parent–child relationship, may deny the
child helpful responses from other people in his or her
life (Bowlby, 1973). Moreover, if a dismissing child
fails to elicit a response from others in his/her environ-
ment when upset, this could ironically confirm a core
assumption of his/her IWM—that others will not re-
spond when he/she is distressed. As well, lack of
awareness of one’s emotional state may impede active
emotion regulation processes (Gross, 1998), which may
lead to more erratic behavior or even feelings of help-
lessness and anxiety.
Developmental Psychobiology
Though we suspect that attachment patterns emerg-
ing early in life guide reactions to later psychosocial
stressors, we cannot impute this in a cross-sectional
study. Notably, the sample utilized in similar previous
work was predominantly White and middle class (Bor-
elli et al., 2013; White et al., 2012). The present sample
comprised ethnically and socioeconomically diverse
participants, enhancing the generalizability of our find-
ings. Future studies could use stressors that evoke a
more robust stress response in this age range, such as a
stressful speech task (Dickerson & Kemeny, 2004), to
evaluate whether dismissing children exhibit this stress
reactivity pattern to more potent stressors. Moreover, it
will be valuable to examine whether dismissing attach-
ment prospectively predicts greater reactivity and diver-
gence. Here we assessed salivary cortisol as our
dependent variable and comparison point for children’s
subjective response. Given that salivary cortisol assess-
ments, as with other physiological stress measures, are
not without limitation (Levine et al., 2007), it will be
important to provide evidence of discordance of re-
sponse within the same sample across multiple physio-
logical domains. Finally, future work should aim to
understand the lack of increase in cortisol values in re-
sponse to a stressor paradigm. This pattern has been
observed repeatedly among children in this age group
(Gunnar, Tagle, & Herrera, 2009). Comparison of psy-
chological, cardiovascular and cortisol stress measures
could shed some light here. For instance, a habituation
model might predict congruence between the multiple
measures (i.e., as subjects acclimate, all three stress
indicators would attenuate), whereas a diurnal model
would apply only to cortisol and therefore would lead
to incongruence across the different measures.
In summary, we document differential cortisol
responding and divergence of subjective and neuroen-
docrine response as a function of interview-based at-
tachment group status in middle childhood. The lack of
change from pre-to-post stressor among the dismissing
group may reflect a regulation failure in the dismissing
group, or perhaps reliance on emotion suppression as a
regulating strategy (Gross, 1998). A growing body of
socio-emotional and health-related work highlights the
central role of mind–body connections for well-being
(Kabat-Zinn, 1990). The subjective-physiological response
divergence among dismissing children may prove to be
causally related to future risk for these youth, but also
suggests a potential point of intervention.
NOTE
The authors wish to thank the research assistants who
collected the data presented in this article, the children who
Dismissing Attachment and Neuroendocrine Response 589
participated in this study, and a Pomona College start-up
grant that funded this work.
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