Attachment and marital functioning: Comparison of spouses with continuous-secure, earned-secure, dismissing, and preoccupied attachment stances.

Paley, Blair; Cox, Martha J.; Burchinal, Margaret; Payne, Chris

doi:10.1037/0893-3200.13.4.580

Cited by 113 publications

(126 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…The evidence that a secure generalized representation is associated with better marital behavior and functioning is not as clear as one would hope (e.g., Crowell & Treboux, 2000;Crowell, Treboux, Gao, et al, 2002;Kobak, 1991;Paley et al, 1999). The findings do not speak well to the criticism raised by Karney and Bradbury (1995) about the course of relationships; for example, security of generalized attachment representations does not predict divorce and separation very well, a key issue in the marital field.…”

Section: Attachment Security As a "Trait"mentioning

confidence: 87%

When "New" Meets "Old": Configurations of Adult Attachment Representations and Their Implications for Marital Functioning.

Treboux¹,

Crowell²,

Waters³

2004

Developmental Psychology

187

189

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Two studies addressed the implications of concordance versus discrepancy of attachment representations in individuals at 2 stages in their marital relationships. Engaged (n ϭ 157) and dating (n ϭ 101) couples participated in a multimethod 6-year longitudinal study of adult attachment. Individuals completed the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), the Current Relationship Interview (CRI), and various questionnaires and were observed in interactions with partners. On the basis of AAI and CRI classifications, participants were placed in one of four groups: Secure AAI /Secure CRI , Secure AAI /Insecure CRI , Insecure AAI /Secure CRI , or Insecure AAI /Insecure CRI . Each of the configurations showed a particular pattern of behavior, feelings about relationships and the self, and likelihood of relationship breakup. The findings of the studies address important points about the protective effects of attachment security and have interesting implications for the extension of attachment theory into adulthood.The value of attachment theory in understanding marriage rests in large part on the theory's emphasis on links between childhood relationships and later marital success, "links . . . that are underemphasized in or absent from exchange or behavioral theories" (Karney & Bradbury, 1995, p. 6). However, attachment theory has been criticized for its failure to describe how personal history and individual differences "affect the development of a marriage once two people with different relationship needs come together" (Karney & Bradbury, 1995, p. 6).The goal of the attachment behavioral system is to promote safety (and felt security) through a secure base relationship with an attachment figure. The theory focuses on how relationships with attachment figures have an impact on development, adaptive functioning, stress management, safety, and well-being. The attachment system provides an organizational framework for requesting help when needed and for recognizing requests for help and providing support (Crowell, Treboux, Gao, et al., 2002). Given this function, individual differences in attachment organization can be expected to play a role in the development of marriage and the challenges faced by couples (Paley, Cox, Harter, & Margand, 2002).In adult relationships, individual differences in the cognitive organization of the attachment system have at least two components. The first organizing element is the generalized representation of attachment that has its origins or foundation in childhood attachment experiences with caregivers and that generalizes to other attachment experiences and relationships (Bowlby, 1969(Bowlby, / 1982. The second is the specific representation of attachment that emerges out of attachment experiences within the adult partnership. In the two studies presented here, we investigated the implications of individual differences in configurations (consistency vs. discrepancy) of adults' generalized and specific attachment representations for their relationships with partners and experiences of stressful li...

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Section: Attachment Security As a "Trait"mentioning

confidence: 87%

When "New" Meets "Old": Configurations of Adult Attachment Representations and Their Implications for Marital Functioning.

Treboux¹,

Crowell²,

Waters³

2004

Developmental Psychology

187

189

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“…Because of their heavy investment in emotional relationships, and because of difficulties regarding affect regulation (e.g., Kobak & Sceery, 1988), we predicted that preoccupied individuals would display less positive and more negative behavior than dismissing individuals. Although this hypothesis has received some support by researchers using attachment orientation measures (e.g., Feeney, Noller, & Callan, 1994), research involving interview-based attachment methods has documented similar patterns of conflict negotiation between preoccupied and dismissing adults (Paley et al, 1999).…”

Section: Adult Attachment Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Simpson et al (1996) had respondents evaluate perceptions of attachment behaviors in romantic relationships (e.g., "I don't like people getting too close to me") and found that general insecurity in such relationships (avoidance in men, ambivalence in women) predicted conflict management difficulties with romantic partners during a problemsolving task. Finally, Paley, Cox, Burchinal, and Payne (1999) documented that adults with secure IWM displayed fewer problems managing conflict in a problem-solving task than did insecure adults. It is interesting that preoccupied and dismissing adults displayed conflict management problems with equal frequency.…”

Section: Adult Attachment Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Associations between working models of attachment and conflict management behavior in romantic couples.

Creasey

2002

Journal of Counseling Psychology

125

158

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The goal of this study was to specify relations between internal working models of attachment (IWM) and conflict management behaviors in a sample of young adults involved in romantic relationships. One hundred forty-five romantic couples were recruited to address this goal. All participants were administered the Adult Attachment Interview (C. George, N. Kaplan, & M. Main, 1996) and observed across 2 experimental conditions designed to simulate waiting room and conflict management contexts. As expected, individual differences in IWM predicted positive and negative conflict management behavior. The IWM of the young women predicted more positive behavior across interactions, whereas the IWM of the young men predicted more negative behavior in the conflict management condition. Individuals who were unresolved regarding loss or trauma and who displayed considerable attachment insecurity were particularly vulnerable to more negative behavior, particularly in terms of exhibiting controlling behavior.

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“…What happens, for example, when an individual with a dismissing state of mind regarding attachment becomes involved in an intense relationship with an individual with a preoccupied or secure state of mind? Intriguing research has begun to tackle these questions (Cowan & Cowan, 2001;Crowell & Treboux, 2001;Paley, Cox, Burchinal, & Payne, 1999;Treboux et al, 2004), but far more remains to be done.…”

Section: The Complexity Of Attachment Relationships Beyond Childhoodmentioning

confidence: 99%

From safety to affect regulation: Attachment from the vantage point of adolescence

Allen

Manning

2007

New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development

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Nell Manning [Doctoral student in psychology] University of Virginia, CharlottesvilleThe extraordinary intricacy of all the factors to be taken into consideration leaves only one way of presenting them open to us. We must select first one and then another point of view, and follow it up through the material as long as the application of it seems to yield results.Sigmund Freud (1915) John Bowlby (1969Bowlby ( /1982 opens the first book of his classic Attachment trilogy with this quotation from Sigmund Freud in a chapter titled "Point of View." Bowlby then goes on to carefully outline his own paradigm-altering point of view, building from extensive observations of young children separated from their parents. Bowlby's selection of this quotation suggests his recognition that viewing attachment from the perspective of the young child, although remarkably productive and generative, should ultimately be just one of a number of vantage points from which we view attachment phenomena. This chapter suggests one such additional point of view.We begin with a thought experiment. What if the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI; George, Kaplan, & Main, 1996; Main, Goldwyn, & Hesse, 2002) had come first? What if we started not with the study of infants but of adolescents? And what if the AAI originated not from attachment theory and data from the Strange Situation (a measure designed to assess the quality of the infant's attachment to his or her caregiver), but from other perspectives on human behavior? Looking afresh at the AAI and its classification system from this vantage point, we might first simply observe that we had a measure that asked adolescents and adults about childhood relationships and then coded the degree of coherence with which the resulting emotion-laden memories emerged.Although childhood relationships are clearly the focus of the interview, the primary emphasis in coding the interviews would not be on the quality of those relationships-even people with horrific childhood relationships can be rated high in "autonomy" and "coherence"-but on how those relationships were discussed. Nor would the AAI, at least on its face, appear to be primarily assessing a "safety regulating system" as Bowlby (1969/1982) describes infant attachment. Rather, what we might notice is that some individuals in the AAI appear to shy away from discussing strong emotional experiences from childhood. Others appear to get easily lost in such discussions. And still others are able to coherently balance recountings of intensive emotional experiences with thoughtful evaluations of those experiences.Interestingly, even without any attachment context, the AAI remains a useful and intriguing measure. We might readily conclude that it captures an adolescent's or adult's ability to manage strong affect in recounting emotionally charged memories. Most (although not all) of these memories are solicited around childhood experiences with attachment figures, but whether this focus is critical would not at first glance be apparent. If the infant Strange...

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Attachment and marital functioning: Comparison of spouses with continuous-secure, earned-secure, dismissing, and preoccupied attachment stances.

Abstract: We gratefully acknowledge Sami Hanks for her continued efforts on this study.

Cited by 113 publications

References 45 publications

When "New" Meets "Old": Configurations of Adult Attachment Representations and Their Implications for Marital Functioning.

When "New" Meets "Old": Configurations of Adult Attachment Representations and Their Implications for Marital Functioning.

Associations between working models of attachment and conflict management behavior in romantic couples.

From safety to affect regulation: Attachment from the vantage point of adolescence

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