The (bidirectional) association between romantic attachment orientation and spousal retention behavior in male-female romantic couples

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2021.04.005

Commentary

Anxious and avoidant attachment styles have been associated with romantic relationship outcomes.

An evolutionary perspective informed the study of the association between attachment orientation and spousal retention behavior. From these, we consider the behaviors that individuals perform to retain and maintain a romantic partner in a relationship.

This study reports two binomial studies (n = 104, United States; n = 978, Germany, Switzerland, Austria)

These studies assessed the following.

(1) Whether the bivariate association between attachment direction and spousal retention domain is replicable.

(2) Whether an individual's attachment direction predicts his or her partner's spousal retention behavior.

(3) Whether spousal retention behavior predicts attachment orientation within couples over time.

The results of the two studies replicated the previous bivariate association between attachment anxiety and costly spousal retention behavior. Longitudinal dichotomous data from Study 2 also observed behavioral predictors of attachment anxiety in cost-bearing spousal retention behavior.