Attachment Anxiety and Attachment Avoidance in Relationship Satisfaction considering Gender Cansu Çelik, Hazal İlkem Özer Kadir Has University

Abstract
The present research aimed to examine how attachment style affects people’s relationship satifaction taking into account gender differences. All attachment styles indicate useful information about relationship situations. We hypothesized that, for both genders, those who have attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety were more likely to have conflicts about their partners, thus they would feel less satisfied in their relationships. We conducted a survey among male (N= 97, age M = 22) and female (N = 139, age M = 21) university students aged between 18-25. Participants were using at least one social media account such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter and also answered questions about their relationship either with their romantic partner or a best friend (RAS). Regression results, as expected, indicated that participants who displayed attachment avoidance and attachment anxiety were less satisfied in their relationship Keywords: relationship satisfaction, attachment anxiety, attachment avoidance, gender

Attachment Anxiety and Attachment Avoidance in Relationship Satisfaction Most psychological theories indicate that an individual’s wellbeing and comfort develops and enhances by the relationships they have been included. Romantic relationships have a huge role in our lives and important component of our whole lifespan. However, when we experience a relationship we sometimes want to engage in fewer interactions or do not want to clarify ourselves and this composes an avoidant attachment style ( Feeney et al. 1993). In relationships, individuals possessed attachment styles can affect their attitudes towards relationship dissolution (Feeney and Noller, 1992). There is an important interaction between this feeling and the satisfaction which leads our comfort and wellbeing. We want to achieve profits, feel satisfied and also express ourselves emotionally, otherwise we have to cope with conflicts and the individuals who composed this attachment style are more close to experience relationship break-up. Also when people commence a relationship they sometimes feel like preoccupied about ‘’ What if my partner do not value or care about me as much as I care about him/her ? ‘’. The senses of intimacy and approval trigger high levels of anxiety. In this attachment style, individuals feel anxious and prone to blame themselves or have fewer positive views about themselves. When partners are attached with anxiety, they feel threatened by these disagreements and are less satisfied from their relationships (Edwards, 2008). By considering the importance of these attachment styles for realtionship satisfaction, the present study investigates if there is a difference between males and females in relationship satisfaction depending upon attachment anxiety or attachment avoidance. In both genders, if people experience these attachment styles, they are more likely to feel less satisfied from their relationship. Prior researchers examined the importance of anxiety and avoidance attachment styles, their roles in relationships and how they negatively related to high levels of relationship satisfaction (Juhl et al. 2012). The importance of this study is to show the impact and contributions of these attachment styles for relationship satisfaction. In addition, this study will examine whether there is a significant gender difference by considering attachment styles and implications of them. Method Participants Participants were all male and female students from different universities All subjects resided and had their educational life in Turkey. Before the survey, participants read the ethical guidelines established by American Psychological Association (2002). The research sample comprised of 238 participants. Subjects were in a relationship either at least a month or were not in a relationship. Participants’ age ranged between 18-25 (M = 21.53, SD = 1.75) and %41 of them were males (N = 98). Participants were studying mainly in Psychology (N = 46) department in the present study. The mean relationship duration was reported as 18.6 months. Measures
Relationship Satisfaction Scale (RAS). Relationship satisfaction was measured with 7 items daptaed from Relationship Satisfaction Scale (RAS) (Hendrick, 1998). Subjects answered these questions either based on their romantic partner or their best friend. Answers were given on a 7-point Likert-type scale from 1 (not at all) to 7 (a lot). A sample item was ‘’ How well does your partner meet your needs? ‘’. Attachment. Anxiety and avoidance dimensions were measured with 6 and 3 items respectively. Exam items for anxiety were: “ I am afraid of being abandoned by my partner , I frequently think that my partner do not care about me indeed.”. Example items for avoidance were ‘’ It is easy for me to trust my partner, I talk the situations which I have got through with my partner.’’ Answers were given on a 7-point Likert-type scale from 1 (totally disagree) to 7 (totally agree). Results We analyzed if there was a relationship between attachment anxiety, attachment avoidance and relationship satisfaction, and whether these relationships remained the same for both genders. We conducted the analysis separately for men and women. For men, there was a significant and strong correlation between attachment anxiety and relationship satisfaction, r = -.50, p < .001 and between attachment avoidance and relationship satisfaction r = -.28, p = .004. As the avoidance and anxiety levels increased, men felt less satisfaction in their relationship. For women, there was a significant and highly strong relationship between attachment anxiey and relationship satisfaction, r = -.72, p < .001 and between avoidance and relationship satisfaction, r = -.52, p < .001. As the avoidance and anxiety levels ascended, women felt less satisfaction in their relationship. A linear regression was conducted with relationship satisfaction as the dependent variable, attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance as predictors seperately for both genders. With respect to men, the linear regression displayed that anxious and avoidant attachment contributed significantly to our regression model, F (2,94)= 17.37, p < .001 and accounted for 27% of the variation in relationship satisfaction. With respect to women the attachment dimensions contributed significantly to the regression model, F (2,136)= 84.78, p <.001 and accounted for 56% of the variation in relationship satisfaction. Also, the regression analysis performed that, for men while attachment avoidance has no significant effect on relationship satisfaction (p = .18), attachment anxiety decreased the satisfaction level (B = -.39, SE = .08, p < .001); for women on the other hand both attachment anxiety (B = -.55, SE = .06, p < .001) and attachment avoidance (B = -.14, SE = .04, p = .004) significantly affects relationship satisfaction and as anxiety and aviodance level increased, females satisfaction level decreased.
The assumption of normality was conducted with examination of the unstandardized residuals. Review of the skewness (-.453, -.724) and kurtosis (-.565, -.233) for men and women were suggested that normality was a fitting assumption and there was no multicollinearity among the variables. Review of the graph of standardized residuals against standardized predicted values suggested that the assumptions of linearity and homoscedasticity have been met. P-P plot indicated that there was a linearity by the residuals and the assumption of normality have been met. Discussion Anxious and avoidant attachment styles were found to influence relationship satisfaction in a sample of Turkish college student males and females. The present study contributed to understanding The present study contributed to understanding of how individuals behave while they experiencing anxious or avoidant attachment in their relationships and how they feel in these cases. The findings of this study was in line with those of Campbell et al. (2008), where anxiety lead to disagreement between partners or a study from Feeney and Noller (1992), who found that the feeling of conflicts creates anxiety and avoidance attachment styles which were more likely to result in less satisfied relationships. Also findings suggests that, as expected, individuals who have avoidant and anxious attachment style tend to have more disagreement with their partners and these attachment dimensions enhance the possibility of dissatisfaction in a relationship. Attachment anxiety refers to discomfort and worry of abandonment by their partner and includes doubts about one’s worthiness for their partner. In contrast, attachment avoidance reflects fear of intimacy and emotional expressiveness. Our research had several limitations considering our sample. This study was basically limited by college students aged between 18-25 and we can not generalize results for entire individuals.

The sample size could have been widened by including more males because our female participants number were more than males and this could be affect our present research results. We conducted this research by using correlational analysis and found a positive relationship between attachment anxiety, attachment aviodance and relationship satisfaction but we can not say both the occurence of these attachment styles causes decline in relationship satisfaction as a general thing. We conducted self-report survey person to person, therefore participants could not feel comfort and always been truthful in order to our questionnaries and this made it harder to find significant truth had been obscured by the lying. In addition, we examined the results of current relationship conditions, for this reason we can not mention about longitudinal effects of attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance in relationship based on gender. One of the possible improvement to the study could had been profoundly interviewing participants for achieving more infomations about them and their current relationship regarding their attitudes and thoughts. Also, our sample could have included internet survey participants to reach more general results, moreover some other types of participants could be involved in our research like family members, teachers, employees etc. for enlarging our sample size. Our analysis was consistent with our main research question and hypothesis which were; ‘’Are there any relationship between attachment anxiety , attachment avoidance and relationship satisfaction?’’ and ‘’There is a relationship between attachment anxiety, attachment avoidance and relationship satisfaction.’’ Based on the results, suggestions to young adulthoods in college might be uttering them to not behave damaging and warn them to be toughtful for the satisfaction of their relationships.

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Table 1 | | | | | | | | | Regression Analysis for Variables Predicting Relationship Satisfaction | | | | | Gender | | B | SE B | β | p-value | | | | Male | (Constant) | 6.67 | .20 | | .001 | | | | | | (6.23, 7.15) | | | | | | | | attachment anxiety | -0.39 | .07 | -.46 | .001 | | | | | | (-.59, -.20) | | | | | | | | attachment avoidance | -0.08 | .06 | -.12 | .182 | | | | | | (-.21, -.02) | | | | | | | Female | (Constant) | 6.98 | .13 | | .001 | | | | | | (6.73, 7.24) | | | | | | | | attachment anxiety | -0.54 | .06 | -.62 | .001 | | | | | | (-.66, -.43) | | | | | | | | attachment avoidance | -0.14 | .04 | -.19 | .004 | | | | | | (-.24, -.05) | | | | | | | Note: R² = .27 for males, R² = .55 for females | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |