Influence of attachment styles on romantic relationships

Abstract

This investigation examined the impact of secure, anxious, and avoidant attachment styles on romantic relationships in a longitudinal study involving 144 dating couples. For both men and women, the secure attachment style was associated with greater relationship interdependence, commitment, trust, and satisfaction than were the anxious or avoidant attachment styles. The anxious and avoidant styles were associated with less frequent positive emotions and more frequent negative emotions in the relationship, whereas the reverse was true of the secure style. Six-month follow-up interviews revealed that, among those individuals who disbanded, avoidant men experienced significantly less post-dissolution emotional distress than did other people. In recent years, a growing number of researchers have become interested in the processes by which people develop, maintain, and dissolve affectional bonds within close relationships (see Bretherton, 1985; Clark & Reis, 1988). Empirical research in this area was spawned by the pioneering theoretical work of John Bowlby (1969,1973,1980), who sought to determine how and why infants become emotionally attached to their primary caregivers and why they often experience emotional distress when physically separated from them. Bowlby identified a clear sequence of three emotional reactions that typically occur following the separation of an infant from its primary caregiver: protest, despair, and detachment. Given the remarkably reliable nature of this sequence across a variety of different species, Bowlby developed a theory of attachment grounded in evolutionary principles. Specifically, he argued that an attachment system composed of specific behavioral and emotional propensities designed to keep infants in close physical proximity to their primary caregivers might have been selected during evolutionary history. By remaining in close contact with caregivers who could protect them from danger and predation, infants who possessed these attachment propensities would have been more likely to survive to reproductive age, reproduce, and subsequently pass these propensities on to future generations. Empirical research examining tenets of Bowlby's theory has focused mainly on different styles or patterns of attachment in young children. Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall (1978) have identified three primary attachment styles: anxious/ambivalent