Exploring How the Human–Animal Bond Affects Men in a Relational Way: Attachment, Loss, and Gender Role Conflict in Middle-Aged and Young-Men

Intuitive and Instrumental Grief: A Study of the Reliability and Validity of the Grief Pattern Inventory

“…Clearly, a more balanced sample on these important dimensions would have been preferable and generated more confidence in applying these results to a general population of grievers. Second, given that previous studies pointed toward a connection between grief patterns and attachment style (Bartone & Blazina, 2016;Primeau, 2013), it is regrettable that a standardized measure of attachment style was not included in the instruments chosen for this investigation so that those promising leads could be further corroborated, or not, with our data. This apparent omission is perhaps best understood by recalling that the context of the original data collection was in service of investigating grief types in relationship to Myers-Briggs personality typologies rather than an investigation of the reliability and validity of the GPI per se.…”

“…As with most empirical investigations, the current study featured certain assets as well as limitations. A weakness of previous studies investigating the GPI (Bartone & Blazina, 2016; Primeau, 2013) is the fact that the losses incurred by the participants did not involve the physical death of a significant person. Rather, those studies relied on pet loss and romantic breakups as the index event to which participants responded.…”

“…Within Bartone and Blazina’s (2016) sample, 194 of the men reported loss of their canine companion, the majority (68%) having experienced death of their pet between 3 and 5 years prior to the study. The investigators found significant correlations between anxious attachment style and intuitive ( r = .286) as well as dissonant ( r = .259) subscale scores.…”

“…As intriguing as these results may be for professionals eager to apply the concept of grieving patterns to clinical work, it is imperative to recognize that neither of these studies (Bartone & Blazina, 2016; Primeau, 2013) investigated a sample of individuals mourning the death of a significant person in their lives, the actual life event on which the concepts of intuitive and instrumental grief are predicated. While these data begin to provide some answers about the reliability and validity of the GPI, essential questions remain.…”

“…In a recent study of attachment dynamics between male dog owners and their canine companions, Bartone and Blazina (2016) also used the 30-item GPI as one of their psychometric measures. A total of 911 adult men were recruited with a sample composition of 72% between ages 18 to 44, 71% White, 52% married/ partnered, and 48% Christian.…”