William S Rholes

• Texas A&M University

Based on previous findings in a U.S. sample, the present study validated the relationship between childhood trauma and dissociation, as well as the mediating role of disorganized attachment and the moderating role of mentalizing (i.e. self-concept clarity and reflective functioning) in a group of 569 Chinese adults (i.e. a community sample). Result...

Extant research has demonstrated that higher mean (average) levels of social support often produce robust relational benefits. However, partners may not maintain the same level of support across time, resulting in potential fluctuations (i.e., within-person variations across time) in support. Despite the theorizing and initial research on fluctuati...

The transition to parenthood can be a challenging time for new parent couples, as a baby comes with changes and stress that can negatively influence new parents’ relational functioning in the form of reduced relationship satisfaction and disrupted partner social support. Yet, the transition to parenthood is also often experienced as a joyous time....

This longitudinal study examined associations between perceptions of partner responsiveness and relationship satisfaction of each partner (new parents) across the first 2 years of a chronically stressful life event-the transition to parenthood. Responsiveness indexes the degree to which partners respond to each other with understanding, validation,...

In this study of 624 adult participants from the general population (i.e., a community sample), we examine adult disorganized attachment, a construct that can now be measured on a self-report scale, and its linkage between child abuse to dissociation. Prior research has demonstrated that child abuse is positively associated with adult disorganized...

Attachment orientations in adulthood can change over time, but the specific circumstances that directly affect change are not well understood. Bowlby proposed that those circumstances involve the assimilation of information that is incongruent with an individual's existing attachment orientation and underlying working models. In this study, 137 cou...

Attachment orientations in adulthood can change over time, but the specific circumstances that directly affect change are not well understood. Bowlby proposed that those circumstances involve the assimilation of information that is incongruent with an individual’s existing attachment orientation and underlying working models. In this study, 137 cou...

Given the powerful implications of relationship quality for health and well-being, a central mission of relationship science is explaining why some romantic relationships thrive more than others. This large-scale project used machine learning (i.e., Random Forests) to 1) quantify the extent to which relationship quality is predictable and 2) identi...

Attachment anxiety can decline in relationships but little is known about how or why. A new framework—the Attachment Security Enhancement Model (ASEM)—suggests that what allays current (momentary) insecurity may not necessarily reduce attachment anxiety across time. This article differentiates momentary versus extended attachment processes by exami...

Romantic relationships are one of the most important sources of well-being. Unfortunately, many people who begin relationships with high hopes later find that they are unhappy but unwilling or unable to leave. Why do people remain in unsatisfactory relationships? The present research examined whether elevated fear of change in anxiously attached in...

In this chapter we discuss the transition to parenthood from the perspective of adult attachment theory. Attachment theory originated in the study of infants’ and children’s emotional bonds with caregivers. Several research groups have extended attachment theory into the study of both adults’ bonds of affection with particular relationship partners...

The stress that arises during the transition to parenthood often places significant strain on marriages that can result in marital problems such as aggression victimization. In this research, we use an I³ framework to identify specific partner variables that are likely to promote physical aggression victimization across the transition to parenthood...

The transition to parenthood is a stressful life event that often leads to decreases in relationship satisfaction over time. Guided by the Stress Buffering Model, we examined how pregnancy intention and humor use are associated with relationship satisfaction across the transition to parenthood using a multi-wave longitudinal design. First-time pare...

In this article, we discuss theory and research on how people who have different adult romantic attachment orientations fare across one of life's often happiest, but also most chronically stressful, events-the transition to parenthood. We first discuss central principles of attachment theory and then review empirical research revealing how two type...

Although attachment security is relatively stable over time, individuals do experience significant within-person variation in their attachment security across time. No research to date, however, has assessed the relational consequences of within-person variation (fluctuations) in attachment security toward a specific attachment figure. Study 1 (N =...

Research on disorganized attachment has indicated that for children, adolescents, and in early adulthood, dissociative symptoms tend to be associated with disorganized attachment. Additionally, empirical evidence has supported theoretical models suggesting that childhood maltreatment and concurrent abuse exacerbate the effects of disorganization, i...

This study investigates the mediating effects of attachment disorganization in adulthood, along with the organized attachment styles of anxiety and avoidance, to determine whether the connections between early childhood traumatic experiences and externalizing behaviors in adult romantic relationships can be explained by an attachment model that dir...

We provide comments on "Meaning of Intimacy: A Comparison of Members of Heterosexual and Same-Sex Couples," noting that there are both content and methodological issues that should be addressed in the article. First, attachment theory, used by social psychologists as a major component of the study of relationships, is entirely omitted. Second, both...

Disorganized attachment has been studied extensively in the developmental attachment literature, particularly with regard to infants and children. It has not been studied from a social psychological perspective in adulthood. In this article we contribute to the social psychology literature by beginning to explore the meaning and consequences of dis...

This study adopted a person (actor) by partner perspective to examine how actor personality traits, partner personality traits, and specific actor by partner personality trait interactions predict actor's depressive symptoms across the first 2 years of the transition to parenthood. Data were collected from a large sample of new parents (both partne...

This longitudinal study examined how relative contributions to the division of childcare are related to individual and relational outcomes across the first 2 years of the transition to parenthood. Data were collected from a large sample of first-time parents 6 weeks before the birth of their child and then at 6, 12, 18, and 24 months postpartum. Th...

In this longitudinal study of the transition to parenthood, couples reported on their own conflict resolution tactics and their perceptions of their partners' tactics. Their reports were analyzed in terms of their own and their partners' attachment styles. The results showed that more anxious and more avoidant persons used less effective conflict r...

In this chapter, we discuss attachment theory and our programs of research on how individuals with different adult attachment orientations think, feel, and especially behave when they and their romantic partners encounter different types of stressful situations. In Section 2, we review some basic principles of attachment theory, discuss what adult...

This longitudinal study investigated marital satisfaction trajectories across the first 2 years of parenthood. Data were collected from new parents (couples) 6 weeks before the birth of their first child, and then at 6, 12, 18, and 24 months postpartum. Growth curve models revealed two key findings. First, for highly anxious individuals, satisfacti...

The Transition to Parenthood and Personal Well-BeingAttachment TheoryAttachment and the Transition to ParenthoodPolicy Issues and ImplicationsReferences

Bowlby (1980) theorized that insecurely attached people use defensive memory suppression to cope with adverse events involving childhood attachment figures. In this study, defensive memory suppression was conceptualized as a form of self-regulation that, like other types of self-regulation, requires limited resources and may be undermined by the pr...

In this longitudinal study, we followed a large sample of first-time parents (both partners) across the first 2 years of the transition to parenthood. Guided by attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969), we tested several predictions about how attachment anxiety and avoidance are related to the incidence, maintenance, increase, and decline of depressive sym...

The current studies tested how attachment orientations are related to empathic accuracy (i.e., the accuracy with which one infers a partner's private thoughts and feelings) during attachment-relevant discussions. In Study 1, married couples were videotaped discussing a severe or a less severe relationship issue that involved intimacy or jealousy. I...

Taking an attachment theory perspective, the present studies investigated partner-related motives for exploration and perceptions of romantic partners as persons who might provide support for exploration. We argue, from an attachment theory perspective, that more avoidant persons may use exploration as a way to distance themselves from their partne...

Adult attachment researchers have made important strides during the past 25 years in testing and applying attachment theory to multiple personal and interpersonal domains. We highlight some of the major milestones and then propose several directions for future research. Some of the most important and promising directions include testing additional...

This study examined the impact of attachment avoidance on relationship outcomes. A “cultural fit” hypothesis, which states that individual differences in personality should be associated with relationship problems if they encourage patterns of behavior that are incongruent with cultural norms, was investigated. It was hypothesized that attachment a...

This study examines cross-culturally how perceived support from, and satisfaction with, a current romantic partner mediates the relation between adult attachment styles and manifestations of depressive symptoms. Three hundred and sixty-seven participants from two different cultural groups, Hong Kong and the U.S.A., were recruited. We hypothesized t...

The information that people remember about their relationships should be affected by their attachment orientations. This study investigated changes in individuals' memories of their own behavior during conflict-resolution discussions with their romantic partners. One week after each couple engaged in two videotaped conflict discussions, each partne...

Two studies tested the hypothesis that religious fundamentalism and self-construal are associated with systematic differences in death awareness. We hypothesized that, for individuals low in religious fundamentalism, who presumably experience less of an anxiety buffer based on worldview, interdependent self-construal (a sense of the self as encompa...

For some people involved in certain relationships, the transition to parenthood is associated with precipitous declines in marital satisfaction and increases in depressive symptoms. After briefly reviewing the transition to parenthood literature, we explain why attachment theory is particularly well suited to account for how and why certain people...

The study reported herein tested the following hypothesis: Religious fundamentalism can serve a protective function against existential anxiety, such that the need to engage in secular worldview defense when mortality is made salient is reduced for high fundamentalists. The results showed that high fundamentalists engaged in less worldview defense...

Terror management theory argues that human understanding of mortality creates an existential anxiety that must be kept under con-stant control. Defenses—such as beliefs that provide permanence, predictability, and meaning—are erected whose function is in part to keep thoughts about death as far removed from consciousness as possible. The current st...

Inspired by attachment theory, the authors tested a series of theoretically derived predictions about connections between attachment working models (attachment to one's parents assessed by the Adult Attachment Interview; M. Main & R. Goldwyn, 1994) and the effectiveness of specific types of caregiving spontaneously displayed by dating partners duri...

Having a baby is a powerful experience that, according to attachment theory, should activate the attachment system and elicit attachment needs and motives. The current study investigated first-time parents' perceptions of and responses to events surrounding labor and delivery and early parenthood. Couples expecting their first child completed measu...

Testing predictions derived from attachment theory, this research investigated how adult attachment orientations are associated with selective exposure to information about the self, one's partner, and one's relationship. The results of two studies revealed that (a) more avoidantly attached individuals have limited interest in knowing their partner...

Guided by attachment theory, this research investigated connections between avoidant attachment styles and the experience of parenting after the birth of a couple's first child. One hundred and six couples completed a battery of measures approximately 6 weeks before and 6 months after the birth of their first child. As anticipated, parents with mor...

Attachment theory is among the most sweeping, comprehensive theories in psychology today. The theory addresses these issues from a variety of perspectives, including physiological, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral. The theory articulates constructs and processes that are relevant to understanding elements of social development, interpersonal be...

Attachment theory is among the most sweeping, comprehensive theories in psychology today. It offers a biosocial, lifespan account of how close relationships form, are maintained, and dissolve and how relationships influence, sometimes permanently, the persons involved in them. The theory addresses these issues from a variety of perspectives, includ...

In recent years, an increasing amount of attention has been devoted to investigating the interpersonal origins of depression and depressive symptoms. Guided by attachment theory and interpersonal models of depression, we describe a diathesis-stress model that has guided our research on how romantic attachment orientations (or styles) are associated...

Testing a model suggested by J. Bowlby (1988), this study investigated how a personal vulnerability (attachment ambivalence) interacts with perceptions of deficient spousal support before and during a major life stressor (the transition to parenthood) to predict pre-to-postnatal increases in depressive symptoms. Highly ambivalent women who entered...

According to attachment theory, individuals should experience changes in attachment orientations (styles) if they encounter experiences or events that strongly reinforce or directly contradict the major concerns of their existing orientations. Systematic changes should be most evident across stressful life transitions. Wives and husbands expecting...

This study examined how a major life stressor—the transition to parenthood—impacts marital satisfaction and functioning in persons with different romantic attachment orientations. As hypothesized, if highly ambivalent women entered the transition perceiving low levels of spousal support, they experienced significant declines (pre-to-postnatal chang...

This study examined how working models of attachment to parents (assessed by the Adult Attachment Interview—AAI) and romantic partners (assessed by the Adult Attachment Questionnaire—AAQ) predicted spontaneous caregiving and care seeking in a stressful situation. Dating couples were videotaped while one partner (the man) waited to do a stressful ta...

In this study, we assessed how attachment orientations and degree of relationship dependence influence individuals' own behavior and their partners' behavior in a stressful situation using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM; Kashy & Kenny, 2000). Dating couples were videotaped while the female partner was waiting to engage in an anxiety-...

This study examined how a major life stressor--the transition to parenthood--affects marital satisfaction and functioning among persons with different attachment orientations. As hypothesized, the interaction between women's degree of attachment ambivalence and their perceptions of spousal support (assessed 6 weeks prior to childbirth) predicted sy...

This study examined how a major life stressor—the transition to parenthood—affects marital satisfaction and functioning among persons with different attachment orientations. As hypothesized, the interaction between women's degree of attachment ambivalence and their perceptions of spousal support (assessed 6 weeks prior to childbirth) predicted syst...

This edited volume draws together a wide range of exciting developments in the study of marital interaction. A significant feature of the book is its focus, not only on conflict and negative interactions but also on the processes by which couples maintain happy and constructive relationships. The chapters review and integrate the extensive literatu...

In this study, women were told they would engage in an anxiety-provoking activity. Women then waited with their dating partner for the activity to begin. During this 5-min "stress" period, each couple's interaction was videotaped unobtrusively. Each couple was then told that the woman would not have to do the stressful activity, and each couple was...

In this study, women were told they would engage in an anxiety-provoking activity. Women then waited with their dating partner for the activity to begin. During this 5-min “stress” period, each couple's interaction was videotaped unobtrusively. Each couple was then told that the woman would not have to do the stressful activity, and each couple was...

College students who had yet to marry and begin a family were asked about their desire to have children and their beliefs and expectations about themselves as parents (Study 1) and the characteristics of their prospective children (Study 2). Persons with more avoidant and anxious-ambivalent models of close adult relationships harbored more negative...

This study investigated how perceptions of current dating partners and relationships change after people with different attachment orientations attempt to resolve a problem in their relationship. Dating couples were videotaped while they tried to resolve either a major or a minor problem. Confirming predictions from attachment theory, men and women...

This research examined the relationship between adult attachment styles and mothers' feelings of closeness to their children, mothers' interaction styles in a teaching situation, individual differences in the desire to have children, and the concerns individuals have about their ability to relate to young children as parents. Investigation 1 reveal...

discuss how acute and chronic stress influences attachment processes / [give an] overview of attachment theory and the major attachment styles / discuss the role that acute stressors and emotional distress assume in activating the attachment system / examine the impact chronic stress has on relationships and how it might produce long-term changes i...

Beck and his colleagues have hypothesized that the symptoms of anxiety and depression have distinct cognitive correlates. They hypothesize that depression is associated with cognitions concerning loss and deprivation, whereas anxiety is associated with cognitions concerning threat and danger. In the present work, we suggest a modification of this h...

Examined how adult attachment styles moderate spontaneous behavior between dating couples when 1 member of the dyad is confronted with an anxiety-provoking situation. 83 dating couples were unobtrusively videotaped for 5 min in a waiting room while the woman waited to participate in an "activity" known to provoke anxiety in most people. Independent...

This study examined how adult attachment styles moderate spontaneous behavior between dating couples when 1 member of the dyad is confronted with an anxiety-provoking situation. Eighty-three dating couples were unobtrusively videotaped for 5 min in a waiting room while the woman waited to participate in an "activity" known to provoke anxiety in mos...

the attribution of dispositional characteristics, such as personality traits and abilities, to ourselves and others is among the most basic elements of social perception discuss developmental changes in children's understanding of dispositions and the impact of such changes on motivational processes two basic theses are addressed: first, that d...

Kuhl (1984) recently has advanced a theoretical account of metacognitive processes which allow one to exert a measure of voluntary control over one's emotions and cognitions and which assist in the translation of intentions into actions. Central to the theory is the idea that individual differences have an important impact on the ability to exert s...

Previous research suggests that children's understanding of dispositions (i.e., personality traits and abilities) changes as they grow older. Even though they may apply dispositional labels to individual behaviors, younger children do not seem to view dispositions as stable characteristics that produce consistent patterns of behavior, at least not...

Two studies are reported that concern children's use of situational and behavioral information to predict the behavior of other persons. It was hypothesized that younger subjects would give more weight to the former and older subjects, more weight to the latter type of information. In Experiment 1, subjects were presented with vignettes relevant to...

The reformulated model of learned helplessness assumes that attributional style has its impact on depression in part through the intermediary effect of pessimistic or negative expectations about the occurrence of future outcomes. A possible logical next step in testing the model is to measure jointly attributions and expectations and to examine the...

Recent studies have shown that naturally occurring and experimentally induced affect states enhance the accessibility to retrieval of memories of life experiences that are congruent in valence with the affect state. Previous studies have suggested that this memory bias results from the influence of affective processes on memory retrieval. In our st...

The study addresses the role of developmental differences in the use of behavioral information that is acquired at different points in time in the person perception/attribution process. The topic of temporal separations was considered to be potentially important because of the possibility that age differences in information use might at least parti...

Beck's cognitive theory of depression and anxiety suggests that there are three major classes of cognitive phenomena associated with affective disturbances: cognitions (or automatic thoughts), schemas, and logical errors. The present studies focused on the properties of “cognitions.” We first tested the hypothesis, drawn from Beck's theory, that th...

In a recent article on mood-induction procedures, Clark (1983) concluded that the Velten Mood Induction Procedure (VMIP; Velten, 1968) produces a good analog state of mild, naturally occurring, retarded depression that is not explicable in terms of experimental demand characteristics. Clark concluded, however, that it is erroneous to view the relat...

Clark (1985) makes several thoughtful points about studies using the Veiten Mood Induction Procedure (VMIP; Veiten, 1968). We still disagree with his position, and interpret the evidence as supporting that the VMIP is a cognitive manipulation. Furthermore, our cognitive priming position may offer a more parsimonious and coherent explanation of the...

The topic areas of this chapter are ones that are not often dealt with together, namely attitude/behavior consistency and cognitive moral development, in particular Kohlberg’s (1969) stages of moral development. Our purpose is to suggest that these two research areas are more closely related than is usually thought. To state our theme briefly, we s...

2 studies are reported that concern children's use of personality traits and abilities to predict the behavior of other persons. In Study 1, subjects first observed vignettes that were designed to reveal an actor's abilities or personality traits. Then, they made predictions for the actor's behavior in other, related behavioral situations. In Study...

Several recent studies have suggested that negative patterns of thinking are not predictive of future depression. Such conclusions are inconsistent with some current theories of depression (e.g., Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978; Beck, 1976; Ellis & Harper, 1975) that assign a major causal role to cognitions. In the present article some possibl...

82 5–28 yr old children were presented with 6 stories in which a male actor described a child playing with 1 of 2 available toys. The salience of the actor and the adult authority was manipulated through presentations of videotape images to examine developmental trends in the relationship between perceptual salience and discounting in social attrib...

Previous research has suggested that the relative accessibility of concepts in long term memory influences person perception judgments. The present study examined the effects of the accessibility of causal agents on attributions. The results indicated that causes that are more accessible in memory are given more weight in causal judgments than less...

It has been found in previous research concerning Kohlberg's stages of moral development that engagement in a “real-life” moral dilemma sometimes leads to an advance in an individual's level of moral thought. It is argued in this study that such moral growth is often motivated by the need to reduce cognitive dissonance, which, it is suggested, freq...

Previous research has indicated that adult attributors expect certain interrelationships to exist among consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness information. Research involving adult subjects indicates that these expected relationships function in the attribution process as causal schemata. When attributors do not have access to all 3 types of c...

R. O. Frost et al claim that self-devaluative aspects of the Velton Mood Induction Procedure (VMIP) do not lower mood or otherwise mimic depression but that the elements of the VMIP that suggest depression-related somatic states do. An experiment involving 52 undergraduates indicated that both aspects of the VMIP have a powerful impact on mood and...

Examined susceptibility to learned helplessness among 20 children from each of kindergarten, Grade 1, Grade 3, and Grade 5 classes by exposing groups of Ss to either repeated failure or repeated success on hidden figures problems. Helplessness was measured by Ss' persistence in looking for hidden figures and their capacity to find them following re...

The present study examined whether modifying a message about a stimulus person to suit the listener has a lasting effect on the communicator's own recall and evaluation of this person. Subjects summarized information about a stimulus person who purportedly was either liked or disliked by the message recipient. The stimulus information contained des...