First, because the zero-order correlation between attachment anxiety and utilitarianism reported by Koleva et al. (2014) was small (r 09. p <.05. n 7533). we deemed it necessary to test whether this association would replicate. This is because an alternative hypothesis seemed plausible to us: anxiously attached people's high need to belong may lead them to adhere especially fervently to societal rules, in the hopes of being identified as an accepted and valued member of the group (eg. Hechter& Opp. 2001: Posner, 2000).Therefore, our first priority was to test whether anxiously attached individuals' strong need to belong would lead them to make more utilitarian judgments or more deontological judgments.
The second goal of pretesting was to account for the potential con- found of trait neuroticism. Neuroticism refers to a general proneness to negative affect. As such, neurotic behavior overlaps with anxious behavior. It may be that neuroticism explains the relationship between anxious attachment and reactions toward a wrongdoer. Previous results suggest, however that whereas neuroticism is a good predictor of emotional responses to negative events in general, anxious attachment is a better predictor of emotional responses to negative interpersonal events in particular doel, MacDonald &Plaks, 2012). Given the interpersonal nature of utilitarian versus deontological dilemmas, we predicted that the association between attachment anxiety and utilitarian judgment would remain significant even when controlling for neuroticism.