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2006) and that a couple’s personal attachment styles

are predictive of how they perceive, feel about, and relate to each other after the birth of their first child (Wilson, Rholes, Simpson, & Tran, 2007). In this latter study, anxious and avoidant styles were related to less supportive partner responses and more jealousy of the infant. Researchers do not believe that early childhood experiences represent adulthood destiny (see Hazan et al., 2006). Despite evidence of moderate levels of stability in attachment style over the first 19 years of life (Fraley, 2002), people’s orientation toward relationships can be altered and changed by life experiences. Divorce, death of a spouse or parent, new relationship experiences, and new partners can all influence our basic attachment style. In addition, studies that do show stability may be confounded with genetically-determined temperament. Some infants are constitutionally “laid back” or “high strung,” making the infant’s temperament—not treatment by parents—primarily responsible for the nature of the parent–child relationship. It also needs to be noted that the meaning and value of different attachment styles may be unique to Western individualistic societies like the United States. For example, Japanese parents appear to foster insecure attachment and “needy” children when evaluated by Western attachment criteria (Rothbaum, Weisz, Pott, Miyake, & Morelli, 2000). Japanese parents appear indulgent, permissive, and overly protective to Western eyes. They do not seem to foster the secure base necessary for independence and self-confidence that defines secure attachment. However, these judgments likely reflect Western standards and biases. The Japanese and all other cultures have their own criteria for relationships and they raise their children accordingly. They nurture healthy children who are well-adapted to their culture. Rothbaum and his colleagues point out that attachment theory and measurement, in its current Westernized form, simply does not fit other, non-Westernized cultures. Despite these qualifications, the possibility remains that that our childhood experiences, at least in the West, may be significant. For example, a person whose own childhood was marked by an absence of warmth and love might be strongly motivated to find an intense and all-absorbing romantic love relationship as a teen or adult. And it makes sense that a person who experienced harsh criticism and rejection when she sought the love of her parents may be “gun shy” when it comes to developing intimate adult relationships. Finally, if you experienced a healthy, warm, and loving relationship with your parents, wouldn’t this inform your ideas about desirable and undesirable relationships in the future, perhaps even influencing

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Positive Psychology, by Steve R. Baumgardner and Marie K. Crothers. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2009 by Pearson Education, Inc. Chapter 11 • Close Relationships and Well-Being 259 the qualities you look for in a spouse? Setting aside all the possible Freudian dynamics, why wouldn’t a young girl or boy think of marrying someone like Dad or Mom if they loved, respected, and admired their parents and experienced an enjoyable childhood because their parents were good parents who were happily married? With both the possibilities and qualifications in mind, researchers have found attachment styles to be extremely useful in capturing adults’ cognitive and emotional orientation toward romantic and other close relationships (Cassidy & Shaver, 1999). Measures of adult attachment styles have a good deal of face validity in the sense that we can often “see” ourselves or someone we know as typifying one, or some combination of the different attachment styles. Adult Attachment Styles Which of the following would best describe how you think about close relationships? (from Hazan &

Shaver, 1987):

A. I am somewhat uncomfortable being

close to others; I find it difficult to trust them completely, difficult to allow myself to depend on them. I am nervous when anyone gets too close, and often, others want to be more intimate that I feel comfortable being.

B. I find it relatively easy to get close to

others and am comfortable depending on them and having them depend on me. I don’t worry about being abandoned or about someone getting too close to me.

C. I find others are reluctant to get as

close as I would like. I often worry that my partner doesn’t really love me or won’t want to stay with me. I want to get very close to my partner, and this sometimes scares people away. Shaver and his colleagues found that this simple one-item test was sufficient for people to reliably classify themselves according to their attachment style (A is avoidant, B is secure, and C is anxious-ambivalent) (Bartholomew & Shaver, 1998; Hazan & Shaver, 1987). Over time, both the conceptualization and measurement of adult attachment styles have been refined. The current view is that attachment styles are continuous rather than discrete categories and reflect two underlying dimensions: anxiety and avoidance (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991; Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998; Fraley & Waller, 1998; Hazan et al., 2006). The anxiety dimension describes a fear of abandonment and rejection and is assumed to express low self-esteem and a negative view of self. A lack of self-confidence and a belief in one’s inadequacy causes anxiety in close relationships, perhaps because a person feels that her faults will be discovered or that he is not the kind of person that anyone would love. Conversely, 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 (or lack thereof) in becoming intimate with others. High intimacyavoidance presumably stems from viewing others with a mistrustful and suspicious eye or dismissing intimate relationships altogether as unnecessary because of a strong belief in one’s own selfreliance (i.e., “I don’t need intimate relationships”). Conversely, people 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. These styles are overlapping, but for purposes of clarity they are described below as four distinct styles. Included in these descriptions are results from the multitude of studies that have examined the connection between individual differences in attachment style and characteristics of people’s close and romantic relationships (see Bartholomew, 1990; Collins & Feeney, 2000; Feeney, 1999; Hazan et al., 2006, for reviews). Figure 11.3 shows the four styles defined by the two dimensions of avoidance and anxiety. 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. Compared to other attachment styles, the intimate and romantic relationships of people with a secure attachment style are characterized by greater trust and closeness, more positive than negative emotions, lower levels of jealousy, higher levels of marital satisfaction and adjustment, and more sensitive and supportive responses to the needs of one’s

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Positive Psychology, by Steve R. Baumgardner and Marie K. Crothers. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2009 by Pearson Education, Inc. 260 Chapter 11 • Close Relationships and Well-Being High High Low Low Secure Dismissing Avoidant Fearful Avoidant Preoccupied Avoidance Anxiety FIGURE 11.3 Four Attachment Styles Defined by Level of Anxiety and Avoidance partner. Securely attached people are comfortable seeking support from others in times of distress. Surveys suggest that about 60% of people fit this attachment style (Mickelson, Kessler, & Shaver, 1997). Overall, 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 to prop up one’s own lack of self-esteem. Such people might be described as “needy,” “clingy,” or even “greedy” in their need for intimacy and acceptance. While they may appear to be sensitive, caring, and supporting, these behaviors stem more from their own selfcentered needs than from genuine concern for their partner. Their fear of abandonment may cause them to be highly controlling of their partners, to experience wide mood swings, and to experience intense jealousy concerning their romantic involvements. Although an extreme example, one can’t help but think about the neurotic lover portrayed by Glenn Close in the movie Fatal Attraction as exemplifying the worst features of preoccupied attachment. People with a fearful avoidant attachment style are high in avoidance and high in anxiety. A fear of rejection keeps people with this style from getting close to others, and their low opinion of themselves seems to be the major reason. If you don’t like or love yourself you may assume others won’t love you either. A fear of being unlovable and, therefore, likely to be rejected when people get to know you well is strong motivation to avoid intimacy. People with this style view others as untrustworthy and likely to let them down. They feel that relying on others is too risky and are more pessimistic about lasting love. As you might expect, 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. Dismissing avoidant attachment combines high avoidance with low anxiety. This style describes people who are confident, self-reliant, and take pride in their independence. They view others as essentially irrelevant. That is, whether people like them or not is not a major concern, because they believe they can make it on their own. Intimate involvements with others are thought to be fraught with problems and not worth the trouble. The relationships of people with this style are marked by lower enjoyment, less commitment, and less intimacy compared to those with secure and preoccupied styles. If you recall our earlier discussion of the universal need for human attachments, you may wonder if people who dismiss the importance of relationships are exceptions to this general rule. A recent study titled, “No man is an island: The need to belong and dismissing avoidant attachment style,” suggests that the answer is no (Carvallo & Gabriel,

2006). In this study, people with a dismissive orientation

were found to experience more positive feelings in response to feedback that others liked and accepted them than people with a low dismissive view. Perhaps because dismissive types typically receive less affirmation from others, they are more affected when they do. Contrary to their claims, dismissive individuals do seem to care about how people think of them. Carvallo and Gabriel conclude that “. . . people with a dismissive attachment style also have a fundamental need to feel connected to others but because they have buried it under denial and a hard shell of indifference, it can only be glimpsed by giving them a taste of what all people need and desire most: inclusion and acceptance from others” (2006, p. 707). Overall, secure attachment is a strong foundation for healthy and satisfying relationships, particularly if this style is shared between romantic partners. In their review of studies, Miller and his

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Positive Psychology, by Steve R. Baumgardner and Marie K. Crothers. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2009 by Pearson Education, Inc. Chapter 11 • Close Relationships and Well-Being 261 colleagues (2007) provide a long list of positive outcomes associated with this style. Compared to the other styles, secure people are more supportive of their partners, particularly in times of distress. They are more disclosing of intimate life details and have more satisfying social lives with their friends and lovers. Secure people also enjoy higher levels of emotional well-being and lower levels of emotional distress. Securely attached people seem to recapitulate the health of their relationships with their parents, which built a strong foundation for the rich and satisfying relationships that contribute so much to a happy life. Research suggests that the majority (60%) of us fit, moreso than less, into the secure attachment style. However, it is important to remember that the four types are meant to be continuous—not discrete—categories. So, despite the virtues of secure attachment, most of us are probably a combination of attachment orientations defined by our degree of anxiety and avoidance. The more problematic styles are in the minority, although we can probably think of someone who fits the preoccupied, fearful avoidant, or dismissive style. The point here is to resist believing that, just because you are not overly confident in yourself or that you are somewhat cautious in opening up to others, this means you fit one of the negative styles and will have relationship problems, or that this fully explains the problems you have. The distance between high self-esteem and low self-esteem and between caution and avoidance is large. Even if we are not “pure” secure attachment types, we can still have satisfying relationships. Conflict and Communication Skills Attachment styles describe important features of people’s global orientation toward intimate relationships. More specific behaviors and ways of thinking that enhance or damage relationships have also been studied extensively. A great deal of research has focused on how relationship partners deal with conflict and interpret negative behaviors. This is because some amount of conflict is inevitable in our intimate relations. Married couples may confront differences in their expectations and desires regarding managing finances, spending habits, frequency of sex, displays of affection, raising kids, dealing with in-laws, and keeping the house clean. Studies make clear that the success of a marriage depends heavily on open communication about disagreements and the ability to resolve them. Focus on Research: The Power of the “Bad” A curious implication of relationship research is that once a relationship is well established, its success seems to depend more on the absence of conflict (the bad) than it does on the presence of affection (the good) (Reis & Gable, 2003). A couple’s satisfaction with their marriage is tied significantly more strongly to the level of conflict than it is to the level of positive behaviors. A well-known daily diary study found that nearly two-thirds of couples’ marital satisfaction was related to the occurrence (or lack) of negative behaviors and conflict, and much less so to the occurrence (or lack) of positive behaviors (Wills, Weiss, & Patterson, 1974). In our intimate relationships, the bad seems much stronger than the good. A single negative act appears capable of “undoing” countless acts of affection and kindness. The most extensive studies of marital conflict have been conducted by John Gottman and his colleagues (Gottman, 1994, 1998, 1999; Gottman & Krokoff, 1989; Gottman & Levenson, 1992). Among his many studies were intensive observations of married couples in his “love lab.” This was an apartment set up to video-tape verbal, nonverbal, and physiological responses of couples as they talked about topics posed by Gottman. Some topics concerned sources of conflict and how they viewed each other’s strengths and weaknesses, but the main point was to get couples to talk and to analyze their style of communication. Both the husbands’ and wives’ verbal and nonverbal behaviors were carefully recorded. Observations captured both subtle nonverbal behaviors (like a faint frown or raised eyebrows), and more obvious behaviors (such as smiling, one spouse interrupting the other, and expressions of anger, resentment, affection, and support). Gottman and his colleagues consistently found that negative communication patterns were more predictive of marital satisfaction level and overall relationship quality than were displays of affection and kindness. Patterns of negative interaction were summarized as the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” because of their destructive effects on

relationships. The “Four Horsemen” are:

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Positive Psychology, by Steve R. Baumgardner and Marie K. Crothers. Published by Prentice Hall. Copyright © 2009 by Pearson Education, Inc. 262 Chapter 11 • Close Relationships and Well-Being