Are one's attachment avoidance toward a particular person and his/her placement of this particular person in the attachment hierarchy inversely overlapping? Four bifactor-analysis studies.

Tomotaka Umemura,Lenka Lacinová,Tatsuya Imai,Emiko Taniguchi,Aneta Siroňová

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0244278

Tomotaka Umemura, Lenka Lacinová + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244278

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Abstract

Do one’s hierarchical preference for attachment support from a particular person over other people (attachment hierarchy) and his/her discomfort with closeness and uneasiness about being dependent on that particular person (attachment avoidance) inversely overlap? These two constructs have been distinctly conceptualized. Attachment hierarchy has been regarded as a normative characteristic of attachment relationships, while attachment avoidance has been considered to reflect an individual difference of relationship quality. Employing bifactor analyses, we demonstrated a unidimensional general factor of these two concepts in four studies exploring Czech young adults’ relationships with mother, father, friends, and romantic partner (Study 1); U.S. young adults’ relationships with a romantic partner (Study 2); Czech adolescents’ relationships with mother, father, and friends (Study 3); and Japanese young adults’ relationships with mother, father, and romantic partner (Study 4). These convergent results provide the replicable and generalizable evidence that one’s attachment avoidance toward a particular person and her/his placement of that particular person in the attachment hierarchy are inversely overlapping.

Highlights

The extent to which two attachment constructs, one’s placement of a particular person in the attachment hierarchy and his/her attachment avoidance toward that particular person, inversely overlap each other has been unclear
This study examined whether the placement of a particular person in the attachment hierarchy and attachment avoidance toward a particular person inversely overlap
As a romantic relationship progresses, the degree of an individual’s attachment avoidance toward a romantic partner decreases, the degree of attachment avoidance toward friends increases, and the one toward parents shows no consistent pattern of change (Study 1 of the present study used the same data as the study mentioned above, but the previous study involved longitudinal data analysis, while the present study analyzed the first wave of the same data with a cross-sectional analysis). These findings indicated that attachment avoidance toward a particular person changes due to the quality of relationships and due to the progress of relationships

Summary

Introduction

The extent to which two attachment constructs, one’s placement of a particular person in the attachment hierarchy and his/her attachment avoidance toward that particular person, inversely overlap each other has been unclear. In attachment research, these two constructs have been distinctly conceptualized. “Attachment hierarchy” has been defined as people’s propensity to hierarchically organize their significant others from whom they prefer to seek attachment.

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