Attachment and the use of negative relational maintenance behaviors in romantic relationships. (original) (raw)
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Western Journal of Communication, 2017
This study used attachment theory to examine romantic partners' use of negative behaviors to maintain their relationships. Romantic couples (N = 227 dyads) completed self-reports of their attachment styles and use of negative relational maintenance behaviors. Actor-partner interdependence models provided dyadic results: (a) having a secure attachment produced inverse actor effects for all negative maintenance behaviors except avoidance, and inverse partner effects for allowing control and infidelity; (b) having a preoccupied or a fearful attachment produced positive actor effects for all negative maintenance behaviors and positive partner effects for allowing control; and (c) having a dismissive attachment produced positive actor effects for jealousy induction, avoidance, infidelity, and destructive conflict, and positive partner effects for jealousy induction, spying, and allowing control.
The American Journal of Family Therapy, 2012
Associations between relationships maintenance behaviors (positivity, openness, assurances, and sharing tasks) and anxious and avoidant attachment were examined in 265 married couples. Using structural equation modeling to employ the actor-partner interdependence model, the use of positivity, assurances and sharing tasks were found to be negatively associated with anxious and avoidant attachment for both husbands and wives. Being open and self-disclosing in marriage was not strongly associated with attachment. Results indicated that the use of maintenance behaviors in marriages could have the potential to foster increased security in partners. Research and clinical implications are discussed.
Prorelationship maintenance behaviors: the joint roles of attachment and commitment
Journal of personality and social psychology, 2009
The present research uses a behavioral observation methodology to examine emotional and behavioral reactions to threatening interpersonal situations in married couples. The research shows that although anxious attachment can hinder people's tendencies to react constructively to threatening events, greater relationship commitment may serve as a buffer against the negative effects associated with attachment insecurities, diminishing feelings of rejection, enhancing feelings of acceptance, and promoting more constructive accommodation behaviors. The research also reveals that wives' degree of relationship commitment has stronger effects on emotional outcomes for both partners than does husbands' degree of commitment. Moreover, husbands' and wives' emotional reactions affect their own accommodative behaviors as well as their spouses' behaviors. These dyadic findings are discussed in terms of attachment theory and interdependence theory.
Attachment Theory, Individual Psychodynamics, and Relationship Functioning
The Cambridge Handbook of Personal Relationships, 2006
Attachment theory has been extremely successful at stimulating research on the formation and quality of emotional bonds and the complex interplay between individual-level and relationship-level processes in all phases of the lifespan . In this chapter, we review and assess some of the empirical findings and propose integrative ideas concerning both normative and individual-difference aspects of personal relationships in adulthood. First, we present a theoretical model of the activation and psychodynamics of the attachment behavioral system in adulthood and describe the intrapsychic and interpersonal manifestations of the sense of attachment security and the regulatory strategies of hyperactivation and deactivation. Next, we focus on romantic relationships, the site of some of the most important emotional bonds in adulthood, and explore implications of variations in attachment-system functioning for the formation and maintenance of these relationships. Specifically, we discuss (a) the contribution of these variations to relationship quality in different stages of a romantic relationship (initiation, consolidation, and maintenance) and (b) the interpersonal processes that explain this contribution. Finally, we extend our theoretical analysis to other kinds of relationships, such as relationships within family systems, friendships, therapeutic relationships, and both intra-and intergroup relations.
A meta-analytic review of relationship maintenance and its correlates
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 2012
This meta-analysis examines the five factors from the Relational Maintenance Strategies Measure (RMSM, i.e., positivity, openness, assurances, social networks, and sharing tasks) and their associations with satisfaction, commitment, control mutuality, love, liking, and relationship duration. Across 35 studies ( N = 12,273 participants), results showed positive correlations between the maintenance factors and the relational correlates except relationship duration, which was negatively associated with positivity and assurances and unassociated with openness, social networks, and sharing tasks. Moderator analyses showed differences in effect sizes depending upon measure (i.e., RMSM or a revision), reporter (i.e., perceptions of partner’s maintenance or individuals’ own enactment of maintenance), and biological sex. Effect sizes were generally larger for women than men and when studies used the RMSM and perceptions of the partner’s maintenance.
Communication Research Reports, 1993
This investigation reports a typology of maintenance behaviors that were derived through inductive analyses of papers students wrote about their strategies for maintaining various relationships. Ten major strategies were inductively derived: positivity; openness; assurances; sharing tasks; social networks; joint activities; cards/letters/calls; avoidance; antisocial ; and humor. These strategies extend the previous research on relational maintenance strategies. More specifically, the latter five strategies and the subcategories of all the strategies are additions to Stafford and Canary's (1991)typology. In addition, analyses revealed the positivity, openness, assurances, sharing tasks, and cards I letters I callsdiffered in their frequency of use among lovers, relatives, friends and others. Interpersonal communication researchers have offered various conceptualizations of maintenance and corresponding typologies for examining strategies that people use to maintain their relationships (Ayres, 1983; Bell, Daly, & Gonzalez, 1987; Dindia & Baxter, 1987). Two studies have attempted to synthesize the literature by factor analyzing responses to previously published items. Dindia (1989) found three strategies labeled romantic, prosocial, and antisocial. Romantic behaviors refer to being affectionate, fun, and spontaneous; prosocial behaviors refer to cooperatively discussing the relationship; and antisocial behaviors refer to using coercion. Stafford and Canary's (1991) factor analyses revealed five strategies: positivity, or remaining cheerful and optimistic;openness, or direct discussion and disclosure; assurances, or statements that imply a future; social networks, or use of common associations to keep the relationship going; and sharing tasks, or fulfilling one's chores and responsibilities.
Can Attachment Behaviors Moderate the Influence of Conflict Styles on Relationship Quality?
Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy
The purpose of this study was to explore how conflict styles influence relationship quality and how that association is moderated by attachment behaviors in the relationship. The current study uses a sample of married couples (n =1718) who completed the Relationship Evaluation Survey (RELATE). Data was analyzed using an Actor-Partner Independence Model that allows for the testing of moderation. Results indicated that husbands' and wives' conflict style is significantly and positively associated with their own perception of relationship quality, with more extreme styles being associated with decreases in relationship quality. Wives' conflict style was a significant predictor of husbands' relationship quality, but husbands' conflict style was not a significantly associated with wives' marital quality. The model also suggested that an increased frequency of attachment behaviors in romantic relationships is significantly and positively associated with relationship quality for both husband and wives. When assessing for moderating effects, attachment behaviors did moderate the negative relationship between conflict style and relationship quality, for women at the trend level (P = .07). The clinical applications of these findings are discussed, to provide guidance for clinicians in assisting couples increase attachment behaviors (be more accessible, responsive, and engaged with their partners) to help them offset the negative influence of poor conflict styles.
Attachment features and functions in adult romantic relationships
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 2012
The present research examined the development of attachment bonds in adult romantic relationships using a cross-sectional internet survey (Study 1) and a longitudinal study (Study 2). Results suggested that attachment features and functions emerge in a specific sequence that begins with proximity-seeking, followed by safe haven, and finally secure base. Our cross-sectional data indicated that people who had been in relationships for longer were more likely to use their partners for attachment functions. However, in our longitudinal study, after controlling for relationship length and age, there was relatively little change in attachment features and functions over time. The data also indicated that adult attachment bonds might develop more quickly than has been previously assumed.