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Attachment Style in Marriage: Adjustment and Responses to Interaction

Linda C. Gallo

The University of Utah, lgallo{at}kent.edu

Timothy W. Smith

The University of Utah

This study examined the association between attachment style and marital functioning, focusing on cognition as a key explanatory link. Married spouses completed measures of anxious and avoidant attachment, negative attributions, and perceived marital support and conflict. Attachment style was related to marital adjustment and to attribution style, with anxious attachment being a stronger predictor than avoidant attachment. The interaction of husbands' and wives' attachment styles also predicted marital functioning. In some cases, the tendency to make negative attributions for spouse behavior mediated the effects of attachment style on marital adjustment. Couples also participated in a marital interaction task involving two social situation manipulations - an agency threat (i.e., evaluation) and a communion threat (i.e., disagreement with one's spouse). Following the task, participants completed a measure assessing their appraisals of their spouses' behavior. Attachment style interacted with the social situation manipulations to affect spouse appraisals. The results support the general hypothesis that adult attachment style predicts functioning in intimate relationships, and suggest that cognitive processes may form part of the path explaining this association.

Key Words: adult attachment • cognition • marital adjustment

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Vol. 18, No. 2, 263-289 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/0265407501182006
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