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Attachment

Infidelity, Here and Now

Sunday, March 12, 2017 By Truth About Deception

New research highlights the latest trends in patterns of infidelity. Here are some of the more interesting findings:

  • People are more likely to cheat during the summer months
  • At a minimum, it’s estimated that cheating happens in 20-25% of marriages
  • Rates of infidelity are increasing the fastest among older men (thanks, Viagra).
  • Infidelity is the number one reason for divorce
  • Cheating is more likely for individuals who have a dismissing or anxious style of attachment
  • Growing up in a house where infidelity occurred increases one’s odds of cheating
  • Living together before getting married is linked to increased infidelity
  • More opportunities to meet people at work increases the likelihood of cheating

Source: Fincham, F. D., & May, R. W. (2017). Infidelity in romantic relationships. Current Opinion in Psychology, 13, 70-74.

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Conflict and Attachment

Thursday, February 16, 2017 By Truth About Deception

Couples don’t always see eye-to-eye. Conflict is certain to arise in every romantic relationship.

What matters the most is how couples approach and deal with conflict. Research consistently shows that one’s attachment style greatly influences how couples work through disagreements.

Partners with an anxious style of attachment are likely to:

  • Experience more frequent and intense conflict in their relationships
  • Blame their partners for disputes
  • Engage in a more controlling style of communication (make more demands, threats, and use manipulation).
  • Have difficulty letting go of issues

Partners with a dismissing style of attachment are likely to:

  • Downplay the importance and frequency of conflict in their relationships
  • Distance themselves from their partners
  • Withdrawal from conversations, limit their involvement, and curtail the discussion
  • Try to keep their feelings to themselves

Given what anxious and dismissing individuals bring to the table in terms of their approach to conflict, you can see how such a pairing leads to problems in a relationship. One person tries to escalate conflict while the other person tries to check out… and no one is happy with the outcome.

Source: Feeney, J. A., & Karantzas, G. C. (2017). Couple conflict: insights from an attachment perspective. Current Opinion in Psychology, 13, 60-64.

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Attachment and Hiding Online Activities with Others

Saturday, February 11, 2017 By Truth About Deception

New research reveals that individuals with an insecure style of attachment – individuals who have an anxious or dismissing attachment style are more likely to engage in infidelity-related behaviors online.

When it comes to online activity people who have an anxious or dismissing style of attachment are more likely to…

  • Engage in intimate information sharing with others
  • Keep in touch with ex-partners
  • Behave in ways they try to hide from their partners
  • Hide online chats from their partners
  • Get angry and defensive when questioned about their online behavior
  • Believe their partners would be upset if they knew the truth about their online activities

Source: McDaniel, B. T., Drouin, M., & Cravens, J. D. (2017). Do you have anything to hide? Infidelity-related behaviors on social media sites and marital satisfaction. Computers in Human Behavior, 66, 88-95.

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To cuddle or not

Wednesday, October 29, 2014 By Truth About Deception

A new study looks at cuddling from an attachment perspective? Does an individual’s attachment style influence one’s feelings about cuddling? The interesting thing about this study – they examined parents’ as and well as romantic partners’ feelings about cuddling.

The results were not all that surprising. Dismissing or avoidant individuals, both as parents and as romantic partners, had more negative feelings about cuddling. However, the study does raise an interesting implication. Parents, who dislike cuddling, are more likely to raise dismissing children. As noted by the researchers:

“… it is likely that children of avoidant parents grow up to dislike intimate touch in their relationships, with both romantic partners and children. Individual differences in attachment avoidance may therefore facilitate the transference of intimacy in relationships across the lifespan.”

Source:  Chopik, W. J., Edelstein, R. S., van Anders, S. M., Wardecker, B. M., Shipman, E. L., & Samples-Steele, C. R. (2014). Too close for comfort? Adult attachment and cuddling in romantic and parent–child relationships. Personality and Individual Differences, 69, 212-216.

 

Too Much Information

Monday, May 6, 2013 By Truth About Deception

Why do some people over disclose?

Attachment styles influence how much information we reveal about ourselves (see, attachment styles).

  • Dismissing individuals are fairly tight-lipped.
  • Secure individuals seem to get self-disclosure just right.
  • Anxious individuals provide way too much information.

The WSJ video on the topic does a good job highlighting the basics of attachment and self-disclosure.