Attachment Style and Less Severe Forms of Sexual Coercion: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Few studies have examined how attachment insecurity (i.e., attachment anxiety, attachment avoidance) is associated with the more subtle and less severe forms of sexual coercion, such as verbal threats and partner manipulation. This is despite the fact that past research has indicated some of the relationship behaviors exhibited by insecurely attached individuals represent behaviors indicative of either the perpetration or victimization of less severe forms of sexual coercion. The aim of this study was to conduct a systematic review on the association between attachment style and less severe forms of sexual coercion. Our search, which included published journal papers, book chapters, and theses published between January 1970 and October 2014, yielded 1091 records. Examination of these records against exclusion criteria yielded 11 studies that focused on the associations between attachment orientation and perpetration of sexual coercion (n = 3), sexual coercion victimization (n = 3), or both perpetration and victimization (n = 5). Findings revealed that attachment anxiety appeared to be more consistently associated with being the victim of sexual coercion than attachment avoidance. In terms of perpetration, attachment avoidance was more consistently associated with sexual coercion. These findings were observed when examining the association between attachment dimensions and motives for sexual coercion. The findings also revealed gender to be a moderator for victimization. This review provides insights into how attachment style may influence the perpetration and victimization of sexual coercion.

Male College Students Using Sexually Aggressive Strategies: Findings on the Interpersonal Relationship Profile

“…Findings on the attachment style characterizing the groups showed that students reporting sexually aggressive strategies presented significantly more lack of trust regarding other people, revealing an avoidance style (Collins & Read, 1990). Dysfunctional attachment styles were shown to characterize convicted sexual offenders (e.g., Marsa et al, 2004; McCormack, Hudson, & Ward, 2002; Smallbone & Dadds, 1998) and are involved in less severe forms of sexual violence (Karantzas et al, 2016). Such findings suggest that all forms of sexual violence may be under the influence of relationship deficits.…”

“…S. Leirós, Carvalho, & Nobre, 2013) presenting more sexual difficulties as a result of the fear of being sexually judged by women (Carvalho et al, 2013). Also, attachment avoidance has been associated with less severe forms of sexual violence perpetration (Karantzas et al, 2016). So, to a certain degree, existing findings suggest that some sort of social maladjustment may be involved in the predisposition to sexual violence in male college students.…”

The neurobiology of safety and threat learning in infancy

“…This broad species representation of abuse-related attachment was noted by Bowlby in his Attachment Theory (Bowlby, 1977, 1984; Harlow & Harlow, 1965; Harmon et al 1984). Findings from human studies in adults suggest that abuser-related bonding depends on a number of psychosocial factors including a history of abuse in childhood, type and duration of abuse, gender, relationship with the perpetrator, social isolation, as well as accompanying cognitive patterns and distortions (Karantzas et al, 2016; Canton-Cortes et al, 2015; McCloskey, 2013; Nicholas, 2013; Julich, 2005), and thus likely involves a number of neural mechanisms outside of the amygdala threat processing circuitry. While it is unclear whether humans’ and other species’ failure to learn aversions to their abusive caregiver is also caused by lack of amygdala functioning, amygdala maturation appears delayed in many species, including humans (Gee et al, 2013; Goksan et al, 2015).…”

Exploring Relationships: A Systematic Review on Intimate Partner Violence and Attachment

“…In the end, Karantzas et al ( 2016 ) provided a very complete systematic review concerning the topic of attachment style and less severe forms of sexual coercion, taking in consideration the phenomenon not only in couple setting but also related to acts perpetrated toward other people.…”