Attachment Style and Relationships
Kathy Schwab
PSY/220
July 29, 2012
Edward Billingslea

Attachment Style and Relationships

Part 1 Robert Sternberg’s triangular theory of love is based on three dimensions: passion, intimacy, and commitment. In Sternberg’s model passion, intimacy, and commitment each represent one side of a triangle describing the love shared by two people. Passion means strong emotion, excitement, and physiological arousal, often tied to sexual desire and attraction. Intimacy refers to mutual understanding, warm affection, and mutual concern for the other person’s welfare. Commitment is the conscious decision to stay in a relationship for the long haul. By putting together different combinations of the three ingredients, Sternberg’s model describes several varieties of love and the specific components of romantic and companionate love (Baumgardner and Crothers, 2009). Romantic love is a combination of intimacy and passion. It is more than infatuation, its liking with the added excitement of physical attraction but without commitment. Companionate love is slow-developing love built on high intimacy and a strong commitment. When youthful passions fade in a marriage, companionate love, based on deep, affectionate friendship provides a solid foundation for a lasting and successful relationship. Fatuous love combines high passion and commitment with the absence of intimacy. The commitment is based on passion and sustained solely by passion. Infatuated love is based only on passion, without intimacy or commitment. Empty love has no passion or intimacy, just a commitment to stay together. Reasons for empty love relations are convenience, financial benefits, or sense of obligation or duty. Consummate love or complete love is marked by high intimacy, passion, and commitment. It is a form of love many people desire. Sternberg’s three component model of love has received good empirical support. Of love’s many varieties, romantic and companionate love, involving varying degrees and combinations of romance/passion and friendship, seem the most basic and widely applicable way to think about differences in our closest relationships (Baumgardner and Crothers, 2009).

Part 2 Attachment is an emotional bond to another person (Cherry, 2012). Psychologist John Bowlby was the first attachment theorist, describing attachment as a “lasting psychological connectedness between human beings” Bowlby, 1969, p. 194(Cherry, 2012). Attachment theory raises the intriguing possibility that some of our most basic, and perhaps unconscious, emotional responses to intimacy are shaped by the kind of relationship we had with our parents (Baumgardner and Crothers, 2009). There are four key components of attachment: Safe Haven, Secure Base, Proximity Maintenance, and Separation Distress (Cherry, 2012). Mary Ainsworth’s research in the 1970’s expanded upon Bowlby’s original work. Her “strange situation” study revealed the profound effects of attachment on behavior. Ainsworth described three major styles of attachment: secure attachment, ambivalent-insecure-attachment, and avoidance-insecure attachment (Cherry, 2012). Secure attachment style is described as when an infant explores a room and the toys confidently when the mother is present. The infant becomes mildly upset and explore less when it is left by the mother or caregiver. They show pleasure and reassurance when the mother or caregiver returns, and continues exploring the room. Home observations show that mothers or caregivers of securely attached infants responded warmly and promptly to their infants desires for contact comfort. The ambivalent attachment style is when the infant does not explore much, even when the mother or caregiver is in the room. The infant becomes very upset when she leaves the room and both seeks and simultaneously resists comfort when the mother or caregiver returns. Mothers of this style are found to be unpredictable in their responses to their infant’s desires for comfort, sometimes showing a positive response and sometimes responding in a rejecting or controlling manner (Baumgardner and Crothers, 2009). The avoidant attachment style infants do not show any visible distress when separated from their mothers and they actively avoid eye contact with their mother when she returns to the room. Mothers of avoidant infants are consistently negative, rejecting, critical and often neglectful. These mothers fail to provide comfort when their infants are upset. The nature of childhood attachment has been shown to predict behavior in later relationships (Baumgardner and Crothers, 2009). Securely attached infants generally go on to have healthier relations with others. Securely attached children tend to be more socially skilled and competent and are more likely to have close families, friendships and longer-term romantic relationships. Researchers do not believe that early childhood experiences represent adulthood destiny. People’s orientation toward relationships can be altered and changed by life experiences. With both the possibilities and qualifications in mind, researchers have found attachment styles to be extremely useful in capturing adult’s cognitive and emotional orientation toward romantic and other close relationships. Over time, both the conceptualization and measurement of adult attachment styles have been refined. Attachment styles are continuous rather than discrete categories and reflect two underlying dimensions: anxiety and avoidance. The anxiety dimension describes a fear of abandonment and rejection and is assumed to express low self-esteem and a negative view of self. People with a positive self-view are low in anxiety, do not fear abandonment, and are comfortable and confident in their intimate relationships. The avoidance dimension describes the degree of trust and comfort in becoming intimate with others. People who are low in avoidance are more trusting of others, enjoy intimacy, and do not worry that they will be mistreated. Because people can be high or low on the anxiety and/or the avoidance dimension, four different attachment styles can be described: secure attachment, preoccupied attachment, fearful attachment, and dismissing avoidant attachment. Secure attachment describes people with positive self-images who are low on both relationship anxiety and avoidance. These people are confident in themselves and the ability of their relationships to satisfy their needs. Securely attached people are comfortable seeking support from others in times of distress. Secure attachment is associated with longer, stronger, and more satisfying intimate relations. The preoccupied attachment style describes people who are low on avoidance because they want and enjoy intimacy, but are high in anxiety as a result of their low self-esteem. This style was referred to as anxious/ambivalent in previous classifications. The preoccupied style reflects a need for the approval and affection of others. Their fear of abandonment may cause them to be controlling of their partners, to experience wide mood swings, and experience intense jealousy concerning their romantic involvements. Fearful avoidant attachment style is high in avoidance and high in anxiety. A fear of rejection keeps people from getting close to others, and their low opinion of themselves seems to be the major reason. People with this style view others as untrustworthy and likely to let them down. Fearful attachment is associated with a variety of interpersonal difficulties including less willingness to provide comfort and support to others and being perceived by others as emotionally distant and even hostile. People with dismissing avoidant attachment style have combine high avoidance with low anxiety. This style describes people who are confident, self-reliant, and take pride in their independence. The relationships of people with this style are marked by lower enjoyment, less commitment, and less intimacy compared to those with secure or preoccupied styles. Secure attachment is a strong foundation for healthy and satisfying relationships. Compared to the other styles, secure people are more supportive of their partners, particularly in times of distress. Secure people enjoy higher levels of emotional well-being and lower levels of distress. It is important to remember that the four types are meant to be continuous, not discrete, categories. Despite the virtues of secure attachment most people are probably a combination of attachment orientations defined by our degree of anxiety and avoidance.

References

Baumgardner, S. R., & Crothers, M. K. (2009). Positive Psychology. Retrieved from The University of Phoenix eBook
Collection database.

Cherry, K. (2012). Attachment theory. Retrieved from http://psychology.about.com/