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 most people. Independent observers then evaluated each partner's behavior on several dimensions. Results revealed that persons with more secure attachment styles behaved differently than persons with more avoidant styles in terms of physical contact, supportive comments, and efforts to seek and give emotional support. Findings are discussed in the context of theory and research on attachment.Recently, a growing number of researchers have begun to explore how different attachment styles influence what transpires within adult relationships (e.g.,

No abstract

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 who had a more ambivalent orientation perceived their partner and relationship in relatively less positive terms after discussing a major problem. Observer ratings revealed that more ambivalent women who tried to resolve a major problem displayed particularly strong stress and anxiety and engaged in more negative behaviors. Conversely, men with a more avoidant orientation were rated as less warm and supportive, especially if they discussed a major problem. These results are discussed in terms of how highly ambivalent and highly avoidant people differentially perceive and respond to distressing events.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

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 task. Observers then rated each woman’s support giving and each man’s support seeking. The AAI and the AAQ independently predicted behavioral outcomes. Women with more secure representations of their parents and whose dating partners sought more support provided more support, whereas women with more secure representations of their parents whose partners sought less support provided less. Women who reported being more avoidantly attached to romantic partners provided less support than did less avoidant women, regardless of how much support their partners sought. Attachment orientations did not predict men’s support seeking.

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 more avoidant attachment styles experienced greater stress after the birth of their child and perceived parenting as less satisfying and personally meaningful. Attachment theory maintains that adult attachment styles should affect relationships with adults and with one's children. The present findings provide some of the first evidence that self-reported adult romantic attachment styles, which have been the focus of attachment research by social and personality psychologists, are systematically associated with parent-child relationships. They also provide insight into the processes through which secure and insecure attachment styles might be transmitted from one generation to the next.