Adult Romantic Attachment: Theoretical Developments, Emerging Controversies, and Unanswered Questions

“When Hazan and Shaver (1987) began their work on romantic attachment, they adopted Ainsworth's three-category scheme as a framework for organizing individual differences in the way adults think, feel, and behave in romantic relationships.”

“This result was rather unexpected, especially because the avoidance dimension is considered crucial in determining the motivational orientation of behavioural strategies (Fraley & Shaver, 1998, 2000).”

“Limitations to the threecategory model (see Fraley and Shaver 2000 ) resulted in Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991) conceptualizing attachment based on and described using two latent dimensions or axes: view of self and view of other.”

“Attachment anxiety reflects hyperactivation of the attachment system and refers to efforts to maximize or elicit closeness in personal relationships due to excessive fear of abandonment or rejection and hypervigilance to negative emotions (Fraley & Shaver, 2000).”

“In contrast, anxiously attached people crave opportunities for acceptance and remain vigilant regarding overtures that may signal rejection (e.g. Campbell, Simpson, Boldry, & Kashy, 2005; Fraley & Shaver, 2000).”

“Considerable research suggests that adult romantic relationships are adult “versions” of the infant–caregiver bond (Fraley & Shaver, 2000; Hazan & Shaver, 1987).”

“Nevertheless, relationship development is influenced by many contextual and relational cues (Bartz & Lydon, 2006; Fraley & Shaver, 2000).”

“The four attachment styles have also been used to describe adult attachments by Hazan and Shaver and colleagues (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991; Crowell, Fraley, & Shaver, 2008; Fraley & Shaver, 2000; Hazan & Shaver, 1990, 1994).”

“The primary scales of interest were the dismissing/ derogating and the angry scales, which map onto the two-dimensional model of insecure attachment in adults (Brennan et al., 1998; Fraley & Shaver, 2000).”

“…their famous Strange Situation laboratory assessment procedure for infant–parent dyads, and they are the two main kinds of insecurity operationalized by personality and social psychologists in studies of adolescent and adult attachment (e.g., Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998; Fraley & Shaver, 2000).”

“According to Fraley and Shaver (2000), although the mechanism that activates the appraisal-monitoring system is theorised to be beyond an individual’s awareness, people may be aware of how much or how frequently they worry about the behavior of other people towards them.”

“…annual convention of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, New York City, November 2009. uthor M anuscript A uthor M anuscript A uthor M anuscript avoidant dimension concerning discomfort with closeness (Fraley & Shaver, 2000; Ravitz, Maunder, Hunter, Sthankiya, & Lancee, 2010).”

“In addition, consistent with most recent research (32,33), adolescents completed a scale measuring the two fundamental dimensions that are believed to underlie attachment orientation, specifically, anxious and avoidant attachment.”

“profiles represent high and low anxiety classifications, respectively (17).”

“In fact, individuals’ initial dating relationships likely provide a bridge between the attachment patterns established in childhood between individuals and their caregivers and the attachment styles that get expressed in future adult intimate relationships (Fraley and Shaver 2000).”

“Insecure attachment has recently been conceptualised along the “style” dimensions of anxiety and avoidance (Fraley & Shaver, 2000); with secure attachment interpreted as low levels on both these dimensions.”

“It can be argued that people who are motivated to achieve intimacy and approval in relationships, but are at the same time mistrustful of others and their availability (Fraley and Shaver, 2000; Park et al., 2004) dedicate involuntarily more resources to the perception and evaluation of approach-related signals and to…”

“Similarly, attachment theory suggests that the attachment system is only activated if there is a potential threat of becoming separated from an attachment figure (Fraley and Shaver, 2000).”

“These patterns have been repeatedly found in offline friendships and romantic relationships.(15,17,18) Recently, a small number of studies have explored the role of attachment style in online settings, including its effect on online friendships,(19) online information dissemination,(6) and Facebook use.”

“Email: nmbarbar@oakland.edu The romantic attachment system functions to regulate and maintain pair-bonds (Fraley & Shaver, 2000; Hazan & Diamond, 2000).”

“…loss and relationship outcomes lies in the work of Bowlby (1960, 1980) and the subsequent psychologists who have used attachment theory as a framework for understanding adult intimate relationships (e.g., Collins & Read, 1990; Feeney & Noller, 1990; Fraley & Shaver, 2000; Hazan & Shaver, 1987).”

“As a result, the dog may perceive a lack of consistent responsiveness to its needs as an indication that it cannot use its owner as a secure base, as it was previously suggested that owners can represent a secure base for their dogs [57], especially in a threatening situation [36,58].”

“…style influences personality traits (Noftle & Shaver, 2006) and many forms of interpersonal behaviors and competencies from satisfaction in romantic love, friendships, and emotional functioning (Fraley & Shaver, 2000) to interpersonal communication and social behavior (Kenny & Rice, 1995).”

“However, Shaver and Flyer [7] found that in many agglomeration economies, many firms performed better if they did not cluster as firms are able to gain benefits from agglomeration economies as well as contribute.”

“Past research also demonstrated that people with low avoidance have positive cognitions and emotions associated with romantic relationships, while those with high avoidance have negative cognitions and emotions associated with romantic relationships (Fraley & Shaver, 2000).”

“…is widely thought to include three components: a) maintaining proximity with an attachment figure, b) using the attachment figure as a safe haven for comfort in times of distress, and c) using the attachment figure as a secure base from which to explore the environment (Fraley and Shaver, 2000).”

“In a twodimensional framework, these can be translated to anxious attachment (characterizing both fearful and preoccupied attachment styles) and avoidant attachment (characterizing both fearful and dismissing attachment styles) (Fraley & Shaver, 2000).”

“Adult Attachment and Emotional Awareness Contemporary theory and research implicate avoidance and anxiety as the two key dimensions underlying adult attachment (Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998; Fraley & Shaver, 2000; Fraley & Waller, 1998).”

“Bowlby (1973) also proposed that the parameters of the attachment behavioural system are gradually shaped and altered by social experiences with protective others, ultimately resulting in fairly stable individual differences in attachment style (Fraley and Shaver 2000).”

“However, theoretical models of attachment (Fraley & Shaver, 2000) and interpersonal competence (Waters & Sroufe, 1983) predict that experiences of abuse and neglect would disrupt working models of close others across time and romantic partners.”

“” Attachment theory proposes that a particular history of experiences with attachment figures and the resulting internal working models culminate in relatively stable individual differences in attachment orientation or style : A habitual, ingrained pattern of expectations, needs, emotions, and behavior in interpersona…”

“…to adulthood, suggesting that continuous and stable individual differences in attachment style exist and account for a systematic pattern of relational expectations, emotions, and behaviors that result from one's attachment history (Fraley & Shaver, 2000; Waters, Weinfield, & Hamilton, 2000).”

“Sensitive and nurturant caregiving is thought to promote children’s sense of security, which is carried forward into adolescent and adult relationships (Fraley & Shaver, 2000).”

“Based on Bowlby’s contention that attachment behavior can be observed through the lifecycle, attachment research has extended to adult attachments, mainly in romantic relationships (Hazan & Shaver, 1987; for a review, see Fraley & Shaver, 2000).”

“Adult attachment relationships serve many different functions that promote survival: proximity maintenance, separation distress, safe haven, and secure base (Fraley & Shaver, 2000; Hazan, Gur-Yaish, & Campa, 2004).”

“The literature on romantic attachments in adolescence and adulthood has generally been considered separate from the literature on child attachment relationships, despite the theoretical links between the two (Fraley & Shaver, 2000).”

“Within the construct of adult romantic attachment-related beliefs, there has been research to suggest that variation within adult attachment-related cognitions can be modeled within a dimensional framework rather than categorically (Fraley & Shaver, 2000).”

“Bowlby’s attachment theory underscores the importance of healthy infant–caregiver bonds in an individual’s development in the areas of emotion regulation, cognition, behavior, and personality, which in turn has a strong influence on one’s long-term psychological wellbeing (Fraley & Shaver, 2000).”

“In prehistoric times, this strategy resulted in several advantages such as better care for offspring and pooling of resources (Fraley & Shaver, 2000; Miller & Fishkin, 1997; Tanner, 1981).”

“First, a central proposition of attachment theory as applied to adult romantic relationships is that the same biological system, the attachment behavioral system (Bowlby, 1969/1982), governs behavior in both infant–parent and adult romantic relationships (Fraley & Shaver, 2000).”

“’s [19] anxiety and avoidance dimensions, more recent research assessed attachment style as being continuous rather than categorical in nature [47] [48].”

“Insecure-ambivalent adults have an unsatisfied desire for extreme closeness with others and fear abandonment (for reviews, see Fraley & Shaver, 2000).”

“Dado que los estilos de apego se expresan a lo largo de la vida en nuevas relaciones, es comprensible que jueguen un rol importante en las relaciones de pareja, por ser vínculos que GUZMÁN Y CONTRERAS 71 favorecen la intimidad y el cuidado mutuo (Fraley & Shaver, 2000).”

“…Shaver’s (1987) theoretical and empirical extension of attachment to adult relationships, the identification of differences in relationship phenomena based on individuals’ attachment orientations has become one of the most prolific areas of research in relationship science (Fraley & Shaver, 2000).”

“These early experiences gradually shape attachment and eventually result in a fairly stable attachment style, which can be conceptualized as either secure or insecure (Bowlby, 1973; Fraley & Shaver, 2000; Main, Kaplan, & Cassidy, 1985).”

“Attachment insecurity can be further described on the two continuous dimensions of “avoidance” and “anxiety” (Brennan et al., 1998; Fraley & Shaver, 2000).”

“The attachment system develops in infancy based on caregiver interactions and remains stable throughout the lifespan.(6,24,55) Two dimensions have been described.”

“Deprivation of this need, especially in early childhood, can influence the way people function in relationships in their adult life, and can contribute to creating adult insecure attachment patterns (e.g., Bartholomew 1993; Bowlby 1982; Fraley and Shaver 2000).”

“…on attachment anxiety have been suggested to hold a negative model of the self in terms of a perceived ability to cope with threat autonomously whilst holding a positive working model of others due to the support and protection they can provide (Fraley & Shaver, 2000; Vrtička & Vuilleumier, 2012).”

“In addition, interactions between the attachment and sexual systems are theorized to constitute romantic love (eg, Fraley & Shaver, 2000 ; Shaver, Hazan, & Bradshaw, 1988 ) and to affect a person's motives for having sex (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007 ).”

“Attachment theory describes how people have a cognitive system that is shaped by experiences of the availability and quality of support they receive when threatened or stressed (Bowlby, 1969; Fraley & Shaver, 2000; Hazan & Shaver, 1987).”

“One well-established framework conceptualizes individual differences in attachment as varying along two distinct dimensions, known as attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance (Bartholomew, 1990; Fraley & Shaver, 2000).”

“These early experiences may carry over into adult-hood, determining the perception of later relationships as secure or inse-cure (Fraley & Shaver, 2000; Roisman et al., 2007).”

“This pattern of transfer corresponds to the stages of attachment development that Ainsworth (1972) described as “preattachment,” “attachment in the making,” and “clear-cut attachment” (Bowlby, 1982; Fraley & Shaver, 2000; Hazan & Zeifman, 1994).”

“Whereas both of these articles recognize the ways in which an evolutionary perspective helps to explain attachment processes, Fraley and Shaver (2000) address the limits of the evolutionary hypothesis, noting the low frequency with which pair bonding occurs in mammalian species and the diversity in…”

“Thus the effects of a person's early attachments have been shown to persist into adult life and to affect both their relationships at work and their romantic relationships (Fraley & Shaver, 2000 ).”

“The current research sought to provide a theoretical framework integrating widely used and well validated measures from each domain, Fraley et al.’s (2000) ECR-R measures of attachment anxiety and avoidance, and Robins et al.”

“These models go on to become a central characteristic of personality structure and will influence expectations, emotions and defences, as well as their behaviour in attachment relationships (Fraley & Shaver, 2000 ; Pietromonaco & Barrett, 2000 ).”

“Conversely, individuals exhibiting attachment avoidance were typically exposed to unavailable caregivers (Cassidy & Kobak, 1988) and adapted by deactivating their emotions and vulnerabilities (Fraley & Shaver, 2000).”

“Parenting warmth could result in higher social competence in children [20] and help them develop secure attachment [21].”

“Adult attachment style has been conceptualized in terms of two dimensions, attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety (Fraley and Shaver 2000).”

“According to various authors, there is a link between attachment style and different aspects of emotional regulation (for a review, see Magai, 1999 ), which influences the way adults operate in romantic relationships, including expectations, level of satisfaction, behavior with partners under stress, and so on ( Feene…”

“Adult attachment styles can best be represented along continua reflecting the two dimensions of avoidance and anxiety (K. A. Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998; Fraley & Shaver, 2000; Fraley, Waller, & Brennan, 2000).”