Guided by attachment theory, a 2-part study was conducted to test how perceptions of relationship-based conflict and support are associated with relationship satisfaction/closeness and future quality. Dating partners completed diaries for 14 days (Part 1) and then were videotaped while discussing a major problem that occurred during the diary study (Part 2). Part 1 reveals that more anxiously attached individuals perceived more conflict with their dating partners and reported a tendency for conflicts to escalate in severity. Perceptions of daily relationship-based conflicts negatively impacted the perceived satisfaction/closeness and relationship futures of highly anxious individuals, whereas perceptions of greater daily support had positive effects. Part 2 reveals that highly anxious individuals appeared more distressed and escalated the severity of conflicts (rated by observers) and reported feeling more distressed. The authors discuss the unique features of attachment anxiety and how changing perceptions of relationship satisfaction/closeness and stability could erode commitment over time.

Data collected from both members of a dyad provide abundant opportunities as well as data analytic challenges. The Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM; Kashy & Kenny, 2000) was developed as a conceptual framework for collecting and analyzing dyadic data, primarily by stressing the importance of considering the interdependence that exists between dyad members. The goal of this paper is to detail how the APIM can be implemented in dyadic research, and how its effects can be estimated using hierarchical linear modeling, including PROC MIXED in SAS and HLM (version 5.04;Raudenbush, Bryk, Cheong, & Congdon, 2001). The paper describes the APIM and illustrates how the data set must be structured to use the data analytic methods proposed. It also presents the syntax needed to estimate the model, indicates how several types of interactions can be tested, and describes how the output can be interpreted.

The goal of this research was to extend prior work on adult attachment and sexuality, which has tended to focus on samples of adolescents and undergraduate students. A Canadian sample of 116 married couples aged 21–75 years completed self‐report measures of adult attachment, marital, and sexual satisfaction. Results revealed that participants with higher levels of anxiety and avoidance reported lower levels of sexual satisfaction at the individual level. Individuals with more avoidant spouses also reported lower levels of sexual satisfaction. Furthermore, the relationship between sexual and marital satisfaction was stronger for more anxiously attached individuals and those with more anxiously attached spouses. These results suggest that attachment is linked in theoretically predictable ways to marital and sexual satisfaction.

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 parenthood perceiving either less support or greater anger from their husbands experienced pre-to-postnatal increases in depressive symptoms at 6 months postpartum. The associations between these 2 prenatal interaction terms and pre-to-postnatal increases in depressive symptoms were mediated by perceptions of declining spousal support across the transition period. Moreover, for highly ambivalent women, the association between prenatal and postnatal depression scores was mediated by perceptions of the amount of support available from their husbands.

This article evaluates a thesis containing three interconnected propositions. First, romantic love is a "commitment device" for motivating pair-bonding in humans. Second, pair-bonding facilitated the idiosyncratic life history of hominins, helping to provide the massive investment required to rear children. Third, managing long-term pair bonds (along with family relationships) facilitated the evolution of social intelligence and cooperative skills. We evaluate this thesis by integrating evidence from a broad range of scientific disciplines. First, consistent with the claim that romantic love is an evolved commitment device, our review suggests that it is universal; suppresses mate-search mechanisms; has specific behavioral, hormonal, and neuropsychological signatures; and is linked to better health and survival. Second, we consider challenges to this thesis posed by the existence of arranged marriage, polygyny, divorce, and infidelity. Third, we show how the intimate relationship mind seems to be built to regulate and monitor relationships. Fourth, we review comparative evidence concerning links among mating systems, reproductive biology, and brain size. Finally, we discuss evidence regarding the evolutionary timing of shifts to pair-bonding in hominins. We conclude there is interdisciplinary support for the claim that romantic love and pair-bonding, along with alloparenting, played critical roles in the evolution of Homo sapiens.

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Two studies tested how romantic ideal standards and their flexibility are associated with relationship quality. In Study 1, individuals rated themselves and their ideal romantic partners on three dimensions: warmth/trustworthiness, vitality/attractiveness, and status/resources. They then reported how flexible their ideals were on each dimension and how closely their current partner matched their ideal standards. Individuals who rated themselves higher on each dimension held higher ideal standards that were less flexible and perceived higher relationship quality the more their partners matched their ideals. This latter effect was moderated by the flexibility of ideals on two dimensions—warmth/trustworthiness and status/resources. In Study 2, members of dating couples reported their ideals, how closely their partners matched their ideals, and their flexibility. People were happier the more they matched their partners’ ideals. Partner discrepancy ratings once again mediated the link between self-perceptions and perceived relationship quality for the warmth/trustworthiness dimension.

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 systematic changes in men's and women's marital satisfaction and related factors over time (6 months postpartum). Specifically, if highly ambivalent (preoccupied) women entered parenthood perceiving lower levels of support from their husbands, they experienced declines in marital satisfaction. Women's ambivalence also predicted their own as well as their husbands' marital satisfaction and functioning concurrently. The degree of attachment avoidance did not significantly predict marital changes, although women's avoidance did correlate with some of the concurrent marital measures. These findings are discussed in terms of attachment theory. Attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969, 1973, 1980) proposes that interactions with caregivers in infancy, childhood, and adolescence give rise to internal working models of the self and significant others that guide behavior and perception in relationships. Most attachment research to date has investigated either infantcaregiver relationships (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978) or adult romantic attachment styles (Hazan & Shaver, 1994). The pioneering work of Ainsworth et al. (1978) showed that children who are securely attached view their parents as sources of emotional support to whom they can turn for comfort in times of distress. Children who are avoidantly attached, in contrast, do not perceive caregivers as sources of support, and therefore they distance themselves both physically and psychologically from caregivers when distressed. Children who are ambivalent display approach-avoidance tendencies toward their caregivers when they are distressed, mixing bids for comfort and support with withdrawal and expressions of anger. The initial research on adult attachment (Hazan & Shaver, 1987) assessed attachment styles using a categorical measure based on the typology Ainsworth et al. (1978) developed for infants. Recent studies, however, have shown that two orthogonal dimensions