Influence of Attachment Styles on Romantic Relationships

Abstract

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. 6-mo follow-up interviews revealed that, among those individuals who disbanded, avoidant men experienced significantly less post-dissolution emotional distress than did other people. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

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Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
1990,
Vol. 59, No.
5,971-980
Copyright 1990 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.
0022-3514/90/$00.75
Influence of Attachment Styles on Romantic Relationships
Jeffry
A.
Simpson
Texas A&M University
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 experi-
enced significantly less post-dissolution emotional distress than did other people.
In recent years, a growing number of researchers have be-
come interested in the processes by which people develop,
maintain, and dissolve affectional bonds within close relation-
ships (see Bretherton,
1985;
Clark &
Reis,
1988). Empirical re-
search in this area was spawned by the pioneering theoretical
work of John Bowlby (1969,1973,1980), who sought to deter-
mine how and why infants become emotionally attached to
their primary caregivers and why they often experience emo-
tional distress when physically separated from them.
Bowlby identified a clear sequence of three emotional reac-
tions 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 at-
tachment grounded in evolutionary principles. Specifically, he
argued that an attachment system composed of specific behav-
ioral 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 repro-
ductive age, reproduce, and subsequently pass these propensi-
ties 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
This research was supported by a grant from the Computing Ser-
vices Center
at
Texas A&M University.
I
thank Lana Aron, Sheri Baker,
Holly Bogart, Debbie Grudrein, Mindy Hall, Lisa Hutchins, Jim Lyon,
Paul Nicholai, Karen Owens, Faith Short, Sarah Sloan, Nicole Street-
man,
and Richard Williams for their assistance in Phase 2 of this study.
I extend a special thanks to Margaret Lerma for her invaluable assis-
tance in both phases of this research. Finally, thanks go to Steven W
Gangestad, Caryl Rusbult, and several anonymous reviewers for their
helpful feedback on earlier versions of the manuscript.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to
Jeffry A. Simpson, Department of Psychology, Texas A&M University,
College Station, Texas 77843.
(characteristic of infants who intermix attachment behaviors
with overt expressions of protest and anger toward the primary
caregiver when distressed), avoidant (characteristic of infants
who avoid the caregiver and exhibit signs of detachment when
distressed), and
secure
(characteristic of infants who success-
fully use the caregiver as a secure base when distressed).
During
social
development, people presumably construct in-
ternal affective/cognitive
models
both of themselves and of
typi-
cal patterns of interaction with significant others (e.g., Ains-
worth et al,
1978;
Bowlby,
1973;
Main et al,
1985).
These men-
tal models are believed to organize the development of
personality and to guide subsequent social behavior. People
who possess a secure attachment style tend to develop mental
models of themselves as being friendly, good-natured, and lik-
able and of significant others as being generally well inten-
tioned, reliable, and
trustworthy.
Those
who
display an anxious
style tend to develop models of themselves as being misunder-
stood, unconndent, and underappreciated and of significant
others as being typically unreliable and either unwilling or un-
able to commit themselves to permanent relationships. And
those who have an avoidant style typically develop models of
themselves as being suspicious,
aloof,
and skeptical and of
sig-
nificant others as being basically unreliable or overly eager to
commit themselves to
relationships.
A
growing body of empiri-
cal
research has documented the existence of
these
mental mod-
els in adults (Collins & Read, 1990; Feeney & Noller, 1990;
Hazan & Shaver, 1987).
Recent research has begun to explore whether an individual's
attachment history might influence his or her attachment style
toward romantic partners during adulthood (e.g., Collins &
Read,
1990;
Feeney
&
Noller,
1990;
Hazan
&
Shaver,
1987;
Ko-
bak
&
Sceery,
1988;
Main et al, 1985). On the basis of descrip-
tions of the behavioral and emotional characteristics of avoid-
antly, securely, and anxiously attached children provided by
Ainsworth et
al.
(1978), Hazan and Shaver (1987) developed a
single-item, self-report measure of attachment style adapted to
adult romantic relationships. Individuals are asked to indicate
which one of the three attachment styles best characterizes
their general orientation toward romantic involvements. Se-
curely attached people indicate that they find it relatively easy
971
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