Attachment Styles

Attachment researchers examine how young children form attachments with their caregivers, typically their mothers. Cupach, Canary, and Spitzberg (2010) reviewed how attachment styles affect conflict behaviors (pp.

The three attachment “styles” reflect the child’s confidence in the parent’s love and whether the child feels safe when disruption in the relationship occurs. Secure children become confident in the caregiver’s nurturance and love, and secure chil­dren feel little distress when their parents leave them alone. Anxious/ambivalent children are unsure about the parent’s loving support and they become quite dis­tressed when the parent does not show love. The avoidant child is self-reliant but still wants the parent’s attention and admiration. Simpson, Rhodes, and Phillips (1996) summarized these attachment “styles” accordingly:

Children who have secure relationships use their caregivers as a base of com­fort and security to regulate and ameliorate distress when they are upset. Children involved in avoidant relationships do not seek support from their caregivers. Instead, they control and dissipate negative affect on their own often in a highly self-reliant manner. Children with anxious/ambivalent rela­tionships make inconsistent and conflicted attempts to glean emotional sup­port from their caregivers, actions that reflect their underly ing uncertainty about the caregiver’s availability and supportiveness.

As mentioned, attachment styles learned early in childhood can affect how we relate to people later in life. According to Simpson, Collings, Tran, and Haydon (2007), early attachment styles affect how children later play with others and perform in grade school. The attachment style formed in grade school continues to develop through adolescence and then adulthood (Simpson et al., 1996). In this vein, Hayashi and Strickland (1998) found that, in adult romantic relation­ships, the most important predictor of feeling secure is whether the participant had at least one parent who accepted the child, and loved the child, and fos­tered independence. Approximately 60% of college students self-report being “secure,” 25% are “avoidant,” and about 15% are “anxious/ambivalent.” Still, some modifications in attachment styles occur between infancy and adulthood simply because people’s sources for attachment and experiences of close relation­ships often change (Simpson et al., 2007).

Research on adults shows variation due to attachment styles. Secures tend to be at ease with closeness, trust and depend other people, and can acknowledge distress and seek support (Ognibene & Collins, 1998). Secures view themselves more favorably than do other attachment types, and they tend to see family members and friends as being reliable and trustworthy (Feeney & Noller, 1990). The anx­ious/ambivalent person wants closeness but also fears being abandoned (Collins & Read, 1990). Anxious individuals experience more emotional highs and lows in their relationships, engage in more jealousy, and become more obsessively preoc­cupied with their partners, when compared to other attachment types. They also tend to seek deep commitment in relationships (Feeney & Noller, 1990). The avoidant adult conceals feelings of insecurity. That person tends to fear intimacy, hides his or her distress, and chooses not to depend on other people. Avoidant people often do not trust others, and they prefer self-reliance and emotional dis­tance (Feeney & Noller, 1990).

Guerrero (1996) found that styles are tied to people’s nonverbal closeness behav­iors. For example, dismissive and fearful avoidant people communicate fewer signs of interest and positive emotion toward the interaction partner. If such behaviors were reciprocated, then avoidant people would create and maintain a world in which they saw others as inattentive, negative, and uninterested in them.

Importantly, attachment styles coincide with how we cope with conflict. Conflict makes attachment styles salient because conflicts imply a disconnect or separation from close relationship partners. In brief, secures are more likely to use negotiation conflict strategies in their relationships compared to avoidant and anxious/ambivalent individuals (Pistole, 1989). Moreover, secure individuals do not become as emotionally distraught during conflict interactions and recover physiologically more readily than do non-secure individuals (Powers, Pietromo­naco, Gunlicks, & Sayer, 2006). The reason secures are not distressed during conflict is that they believe their partner fundamentally cares for them and that they can work through their distresses successfully. Interestingly, people who are not secure but have a secure partner communicate in positive ways during con­flict. In a similar manner, Bippus and Rollin (2003) found that friends of secure people view them using more cooperative, integrative behaviors than do friends of non-secures.

The anxious/ambivalent types are less secure about their attachments in close relationships. Although they hold a positive assessment of their partner, they remain unsure about their own desirability. And this combination plays out in both negative and avoidant conflict behaviors.

Avoidant individuals attempt to mask any feelings of insecurity. Because they want to appear self-reliant, avoidant people disengage themselves from conflict interaction. Simpson et al. (1996) found that highly avoidant individuals minimize their involvement in conflict interactions, experience less anger and stress during conflict than do anxious/ambivalent people, and they engage in communication that was judged by raters to be of poor quality.

The above literature indicates that attachment styles might have profound effects on how people manage conflicts in their important relationships. However, this literature also reflects an individual difference presumption. More precisely, it would appear critical that the dyad contain at least one person whose attach­ment style is secure. The logic underlying this assertion is based on the research reviewed above showing that, in comparison to other attachment styles, secure individuals report more stable and satisfying involvements. Moreover, Creasey (2002) reported that one person’s attachment style can “moderate the effects of his/her partner’s attachment representations” (p. 366). Likewise, Canary, Erick­son, Tafoya, and Bachman (2002) found that marriages that contained at least one secure individual were more satisfying, and they involved more constructive conflict behaviors when compared to marriages where neither partner was secure.

Moreover, people who are insecure but have a secure partner tend to respond less negatively to conflict interactions than do people who are insecure and have likeminded insecure partners (Gallo & Smith, 2001). Canary et al. (2002) also found that marriages with at least one secure individual involved more con­structive conflict behaviors when compared to marriages where neither partner

was secure. That is, relationships that contain at least one secure partner appear better able to promote positive conflict interactions than relationships without at least one secure person. As Creasey (2002) argued, in technical terms: one person’s attachment style can “moderate the effects of his/her partner’s attach­ment representations” during interaction (p. 366). In sum, because both parties’ attachment styles affect conflict behaviors, it would be wise for each individual to assess the role that his or her attachment style plays in affecting conflict behavior.

More recently, scholars have developed a two-dimensional model of attach­ment orientations (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991). Bartholomew and Horow­itz’s dimensions concern (1) positive versus negative view of self, and (2) positive versus negative view of others. These dimensions cross to create a four cate­gory system of attachment styles (e.g., Guerrero & Burgoon, 1996): Secures hold positive views of close relational partners and of themselves; Anxious individuals maintain positive views of others but negative views of self; Dismissives ascribe to negative views of partners but positive views of self; and Avoidants hold negative views of both others and self. The idea here is that everyone varies along these four dimensions. Using this two-dimensional model (or even a three-dimen­sional model; e.g., Gallo & Smith, 2001) provides greater precision in discovering how underlying attachment dimensions relate to interaction behavior (Guerrero, 1996). In synthesizing the above material, we offer the following principle:

Conclusion 7.5: Conflict is one area that prompts people's attachment orientations.

Conclusion 7.6: Your own attachment style affects how you and others use strategic conflict to return incompatibilities into normative states.

Suggestion 7.5: To gain personal control, be mindful of your attachment orientation and how it affects your strategic conflict.

Suggestion 7.6: Develop relationships with people who reveal a secure attachment style.