Attachment Style Convergence and Divergence Across College Students' Friendships and Romantic Relationships

35 COPYRIGHT 2012 BY PSI CHI, THE INTERNATIONAL HONOR SOCIETY IN PSYCHOLOGY (VOL. 17, NO. 1/ISSN 2164-8204) *Faculty mentor As a communal species , the role of relationships formed by humans is important for social development. An element of relationships considered imperative to achieve is intimacy (Collins & Sroufe, 1999). The development of intimacy is reliant on the experiences in which one engages and the choices one makes. Collins and Sroufe (1999) argued that in order to obtain intimacy, individuals must value closeness and be able to tolerate and express strong emotions within the context of the relationship. Close relationships give the individual the opportunity to learn what kinds of expectations they should have with regard to interpersonal communication, as well as to learn to accept feedback from others (Collins & Sroufe, 1999). Attachment theory provides a compelling framework for understanding the development of capacity for intimacy and for generating hypotheses about continuity and change in intimacy experiences over time (Ainsworth, 1989). Many individuals encounter hardships in their close relationships. Some face social victimization (e.g., bullying) while others are betrayed by their friends or romantic partners. How individuals perceive these events can affect the course of that relationship (Finchman, 2001). Since these perceptions affect the relationship itself, it could also generalize into other types of relationships or to attachments developed in the future. In this study, negative past relationship events were examined in relation to attachment experiences in both close friendships and romantic relationships. Hazan and Shaver (1987) first applied the tenets of attachment theory to adult romantic relationships. They theorized that the emotional bond developed between adult romantic partners shares a similar motivational system to the emotional bond between infants and their caregivers. Some parallels between adult and infant attachment include (a) both feel safe when the attachment figure is present and responsive, (b) both engage in close, intimate bodily contact, and (c) both feel insecure when the other person is not available. Hazan and Shaver (1994) assessed attachment experiences among adult participants via self-report measures and observed that adult romantic representations could be adequately captured with the same attachment categories observed in parent-child attachment relationships: (a) secure; (b) dismissing or avoidant; and (c) preoccupied or ambivalent. ABSTRACT. Attachment representations in friendship and romantic relationship contexts were examined in a sample of 398 college students. Analyses examined patterns of attachment style in both relationship contexts, divergence and convergence in attachment style, and links between attachment representations and negative peer and romantic relationship experiences (i.e., relational and physical victimization and betrayal). The majority of participants reported more secure attachment representations, relative to preoccupied or dismissing attachment. However, analysis of biological sex indicated that men reported more dismissing attachment styles with both friends and romantic partners, relative to women. Additionally, significant links were observed between negative peer and romantic relationship experiences and attachment representations, in theoretically consistent directions. Attachment Style Convergence and Divergence Across College Students’ Friendships and Romantic Relationships