The Nature of Attachment Relationships and Grief Responses in Older Adults: An Attachment Path Model of Grief

BACKGROUND: Various researchers have theorized that bereaved adults who report non-secure attachment are at higher risk of pathological grief. Yet past findings on avoidant attachment representations and grief have yielded limited and contradictory outcomes. Little research has been conducted with older adults to identify the psychological processes that mediate between self-reported attachment representations and the patterns of grief. OBJECTIVE: To examine the impacts of avoidant attachment and anxious attachment dimensions on emotion and non-acceptance, in response to the loss of a conjugal partner, and the mediating effect of yearning thoughts. DESIGN: Men (N = 21) and women (N = 68) aged 60 years and above who had lost a partner within the last 12 to 72 months were invited to participate. Participants rated their levels of yearning thoughts about the deceased, emotions and non-acceptance on the Texas Revised Inventory of Grief (TRIG-Present), and their type and level of general romantic attachment on the Experiences In Close Relationship questionnaire (ECR). RESULTS: Structural equation modelling (SEM) indicated that individuals who reported higher levels of avoidant attachment reported less emotional responses and less non-acceptance. SEM also showed that individuals who reported higher levels of anxious attachment reported greater emotional responses and greater non-acceptance. SEM further indicated that these relationships were mediated by yearning thoughts. CONCLUSION: People adopt different grief coping patterns according to their self-reported attachment representations, with the nature of their yearning thoughts influencing the process. Grief therapy may be organized according to individual differences in attachment representations

Organization of the interior of molecular capsules by hydrogen bonding

The enclosure of functional entities within a protective boundary is an essential feature of biological systems. On a molecular scale, free-standing capsules with an internal volume sufficiently large to house molecular species have been synthesized and studied for more than a decade. These capsules have been prepared by either covalent synthesis or self-assembly, and the internal volumes have ranged from 200 to 1,500 Å(3). Although biological systems possess a remarkable degree of order within the protective boundaries, to date only steric constraints have been used to order the guests within molecular capsules. In this article we describe the synthesis and characterization of hexameric molecular capsules held together by hydrogen bonding. These capsules possess internal order of the guests brought about by hydrogen bond donors within, but not used by, the framework of the capsule. The basic building blocks of the hexameric capsules are tetrameric macrocycles related to resorcin[4]arenes and pyrogallol[4]arenes. The former contain four 1,3-dihydroxybenzene rings bridged together by -CHR- units, whereas the latter contain four 1,2,3-trihydroxybenzene rings bridged together. We now report the synthesis of related mixed macrocycles, and the main focus is on the macrocycle composed of three 1,2,3-trihydroxybenzene rings and one 1,3-dihydroxybenzene ring bridged together. The mixed macrocycles self-assemble from a mixture of closely related compounds to form the hexameric capsule with internally ordered guests