Kelly A. Brennan’s research while affiliated with SUNY Brockport and other places

What is this page?


This page lists works of an author who doesn't have a ResearchGate profile or hasn't added the works to their profile yet. It is automatically generated from public (personal) data to further our legitimate goal of comprehensive and accurate scientific recordkeeping. If you are this author and want this page removed, please let us know.

Publications (15)


The role of attachment in influencing reactions to manipulated feedback from romantic partners
  • Article

September 2007

·

122 Reads

·

26 Citations

European Journal of Social Psychology

·

Suzanne Israel

·

Kelly A. Brennan

A study of 80 couples (mean age 24) examined the impact of attachment patterns on reactions to manipulated positive or negative feedback, ostensibly from partners. As expected, individuals high in attachment anxiety reported more negative mood and the least indifference to partner feedback. In addition, those high in attachment anxiety reported more negative reactions to negative feedback compared to those low in anxiety. Those high in attachment anxiety reported lower self-competence after receiving negative feedback than those low in anxiety. Further, reactions to manipulated feedback mediated the relationship between attachment anxiety and self-competence. Attachment models play a role in determining reactions to partner feedback and moderate how feedback is used to maintain self-views. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


The Adult Attachment Interview and self-reports of romantic attachment: Associations across domains and methods

May 2005

·

766 Reads

·

267 Citations

Personal Relationships

Two lines of research on adult attachment have emerged; both are based on Bowlby and Ainsworth's attachment theory, which in turn relies on evolutionary theory. Investigators in one tradition use the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) to assess “state of mind with respect to attachment.” The AAI has been validated primarily by its ability to predict the attachment classification of an interviewee's child in Ainsworth's “strange situation.” Investigators in the second tradition use self-report measures to assess romantic “attachment style.” The self-report measures have been validated by their ability to predict features of romantic/marital relationships. Although the two constructs. state of mind and romantic attachment, are importantly different and so would not be expected to relate highly, some of their components, especially ability to depend on attachment figures, should be related if both stem from a person's attachment history. We report associations between components, or aspects, of the two measures. Overlap occurs mainly in the areas of comfort depending on attachment figures and comfort serving as an attachment figure for others. Implications of the findings for attachment theory and research, as well as for evolutionary psychology, are discussed.




Attachment Styles and Personality Disorders: Their Connections to Each Other and to Parental Divorce, Parental Death, and Perceptions of Parental Caregiving

November 1998

·

7,395 Reads

·

345 Citations

Journal of Personality

Attachment theory was explored as a means of understanding the origins of personality disorders. We investigated whether adult attachment styles and personality disorders share a common underlying structure, and how both kinds of variables relate to family background factors, including parental death, parental divorce, and current representations of childhood relationships with parents. A nonclinical group of 1407 individuals, mostly adolescents and young adults, were surveyed about their attachment styles, parental marital status, parental mortality status, perceptions of treatment by parents in childhood, and 13 personality disorders. Results indicated substantial overlap between attachment and personality-disorder measures. Two of the personality-disorder dimensions are related to the two dimensions of the attachment space; that is, there is a two-dimensional space in which both the attachment patterns and most of the personality disorders can be arrayed. The one personality-disorder factor that is unrelated to attachment appears akin to psychopathy. Both personality disorders and attachment styles were associated with family-of-origin variables. Results are discussed in terms of encouraging further research to test the idea that insecure attachment and most of the personality disorders share similar developmental antecedents.


Attachment-Style Differences in Attitudes toward and Reactions to Feedback from Romantic Partners: An Exploration of the Relational Bases of Self-Esteem
  • Article
  • Full-text available

July 1998

·

1,827 Reads

·

122 Citations

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

The authors examined attachment-style differences in reliance on partner feedback to maintain self-esteem. First, they argue that those people who value relational sources of self-esteem are more open to and affected by partner feedback than those people who derive self-esteem from competence-based sources; these differences correspond to working models of self and others. Results revealed that individuals with negative other-models are relatively averse to partner feedback, and individuals with negative self-models are distressed by feedback. Second, the authors propose that, for some, partner feedback serves as a mechanism for maintaining global self-esteem; for others, feedback is irrelevant to self-esteem. Results confirmed that the association of attachment with self-esteem is fully mediated by sources of self-esteem and partially mediated by attitudes about and reactions to partner feedback. The authors discuss their results in terms of their implications for understanding relational bases of self esteem as well as working models.

Download

When Birds of Different Feathers Flock Together: A Preliminary Comparison of Intra-Ethnic and Inter-Ethnic Dating Relationships

April 1998

·

87 Reads

·

47 Citations

In light of an increasing ethnic diversity in the US, we sought to investigate how and whether cultural variables impact the quality of dating relationships by comparing couples from either the same or a different ethnic group. In a small sample of young dating couples, we examined motives for initiating their relationships, relationship satisfaction, self-esteem, and various structural variables, including degree of prejudice. Results revealed that same-ethnic and inter-ethnic couple members entered relationships for similar reasons, and reported similar levels of relationship satisfaction. Those in interethnic relationships were somewhat lower in self-esteem than those in same-ethnic relationships. Relative to persons dating within their ethnic group, those dating outside their ethnic group reported less identification with members of their own ethnicity, greater availability of potential dating partners outside their ethnic group, less societal approval of their current relationships, and greater preference for contact with people outside their ethnic group.



Dimensions of Adult Attachment, Affect Regulation, and Romantic Relationship Functioning

March 1995

·

6,178 Reads

·

917 Citations

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

Recent research has suggested that adult attachment style, an orientation to relationships thought to be determined by child-hood relationships with parents and subsequent experiences with important attachment figures, affects the experience of romantic love. Several hypotheses were generated regarding attachment-style differences in affect-regulation strategies (nonintimate sexual behavior, alcohol use, and eating disorders) and attachment experiences and dynamics in couples (e.g., relationship satisfaction, partner-matching on attachment style). These hypotheses were tested using seven theoretically derived attachment scales, which reveal the specific attributes of a person's attachment style. Results indicate substantial associations between attachment dimensions and relationship satisfaction, nonintimate sexuality, eating disorders, and motives for drinking, and replicate previous research showing nonrandom but weak pairing of attachment styles in dating couples.



Citations (15)


... Both patterns are associated with a general belief in an unpredictable and potentially unsafe world (Bowlby, 1973;Shaver & Mikulincer, 2007). While early research categorized attachment into three styles (secure, anxious, and avoidant (2015), current research focuses on two dimensions: attachment anxiety and avoidance (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991;Brennan et al., 1998). Attachment anxiety is characterized by preoccupation with rejection and fear of abandonment, while avoidance reflects distrust in others' availability and a tendency toward emotional detachment. ...

Reference:

Parental Stress and Mental Health Outcomes Following the October 7th Events: Insights from Israeli Families of Children with Special Needs
Self-report measurement of adult attachment: An integrative overview

... The anxiety dimension reflects uncertainty about others' availability and concerns about one's own ability to cope with threats (Fraley, Waller, and Brennan 2000). People with high trait anxiety use strategies that hyperactivate the attachment system, such as heightened attentiveness for rejection and threat cues, along with excessive reassurance-seeking (Brennan and Carnelley 1999;Mikulincer and Shaver 2023;Shaver, Schachner, and Mikulincer 2005). The avoidance dimension signifies a rigid distrust in others' availability and concerns about expressing emotional closeness (Fraley, Waller, and Brennan 2000). ...

Using meaning to mend holes in the nomological net of excessive reassurance-seeking and depression
  • Citing Article
  • January 1999

Psychological Inquiry

... Distribution of research sample.Depression: According to Shaver and Brennan's[50] study, the degree of agreement with four items was measured on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree): (1) I was bothered by things that usually do not affect me; (2) I did not feel like eating; my appetite was poor; (3) I felt that I could not shake off the blues even with help from my family or friends; (4) I felt lonely;(5)I had trouble keeping my mind on what I was doing; (6) I felt depressed; and (7) I felt that everything I did was an effort. ESG complexity: Adapted from Tarafdar et al.'s [51] techno-complexity to ESG in a way suitable for this study, the degree of agreement with four items: (1) I do not know enough about this ESG to handle my job satisfactorily, (2) I need a long time to understand and use ESG, (3) I do not find enough time to study and upgrade my ESG skills, and (4) I often find it too complex for me to understand and use ESG was measured on a 5-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree, 5 = strongly agree). ...

Measures of Depression and Loneliness
  • Citing Chapter
  • December 1991

... Yet, a second pattern indicates that romantic relationship outcomes are better for intercultural couples. At least two studies have found that interethnic couples reported similar levels of romantic relationship satisfaction when compared to intraethnic couples (Negy & Snyder, 2000;Shibazaki & Brennan, 1998), and romantic relationship satisfaction has also been found to be higher for interracial couples compared to intraracial couples (Troy et al., 2006). ...

When Birds of Different Feathers Flock Together: A Preliminary Comparison of Intra-Ethnic and Inter-Ethnic Dating Relationships

... Males were also more fearful-avoidant and dismissive in relationships than females, with both family members and friends. These results are in accordance with previous findings on gender differences in attachment (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991;Duggan & Brennan, 1994). Authority ranking was higher for men's relations than for women's, whereas equality matching in relationships was higher for women, and lower for men. ...

Social Avoidance and its Relation to Bartholomew's Adult Attachment Typology

... This selfreport instrument assesses adult attachment within Bartholomew's four-category framework secure, preoccupied, dismissing (or dismissing avoidant), fearful (fearfulavoidant). Brennan, Shaver, and Tobey (1991) demonstrated that secure, preoccupied, dismissing (or dismissing avoidant), align with Shaver's (1987, 1990) secure, anxious and avoidant styles. Bartholomew's measure adds the "fearful" category and situates the four categories within a two-dimensional model (Bartholomew, 1991). ...

Attachment Styles, Gender and Parental Problem Drinking

... Furthermore, studies have indicated that individuals with a secure attachment style are more sociable, helpful to others, and able to rely on themselves and others as a secure base (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1995;Brennan & Bosson, 1998). ...

Attachment-Style Differences in Attitudes toward and Reactions to Feedback from Romantic Partners: An Exploration of the Relational Bases of Self-Esteem

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

... Attachment theory, developed by (Brennan & Shaver, 1995), this is the basis upon which early relationships with caregivers influence developmental trajectories. According to Bowlby, attachment is an innate behavioral system meant to ensure survival where a child seeks proximity to his or her caregiver for safety and emotional regulation. ...

Dimensions of Adult Attachment, Affect Regulation, and Romantic Relationship Functioning
  • Citing Article
  • March 1995

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

... Empirical evidence was found for an apparent match between such styles and the subsequent attachment styles in friendship and emotional relationships among adults. Researchers also found that attachment styles relate to behavioral, cognitive, emotional and social aspects in interpersonal relationships and that they relate to an individuals' feelings and social interactions (Shaver & Brennan, 1992). ...

Attachment Styles and the "Big Five" Personality Traits: Their Connections with Each Other and with Romantic Relationship Outcomes
  • Citing Article
  • October 1992

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin