Adult Attachment and Social Perception of Emotion: The role of Social Motives

Despite the seminal role of emotion perception in social and personal relationships, there is limited understanding of how adult attachment organization affects the decoding of facial emotion expressions. Previous research has focused on how insecure attachment-related strategies for emotion regulation influence early stages of emotion information processing. However, recent studies highlight the importance of social processes and motivational factors in the perception of positive and negative emotion (see e.g., Vrtička, Sander, & Vuilleumier, 2012). Based on a critical review of the relevant literature, the present article presents findings from a recent series of studies that reveal the effects senders' social moti ves (relational context, social goals) have on emotion decoding accuracy in adults with insecure attachment. The findings from these studies are discussed in the context of theories of motivated social cognition and the social perception of emotion.