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Attachment Theory and Partner Choice: Preference and Actuality

Duke University Medical Center

Keith E. Davis

University of South Carolina

This work uses samples of 285 college students and their mothers to offer validity to a fourth attachment style and to test a new hypothesis: that partners would be preferred as a function of their potential for providing a secure attachment bond. Profiles exemplifying four attachment styles of potential partners were rated by the participants for degree of preference and degree of similarity to current partners. Consistent with the attachment-security hypothesis, Secure partners were preferred across all attachment styles in both samples, followed by Preoccupied, Avoidant, and finally Ambivalent partners. Current partners were rated as more secure than insecure, but the more secure the rater, the more secure they rated their partners. We propose an alternative organizing principle for the study of partner preference, using attachment theory rather than either of the traditional explanatory mechanisms, similarity or complementarity.

Key Words: attachment security hypothesis • attachment styles • romantic partner preference

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