Abstract
The present study evaluated the relations between anxious attachment styles and rejection sensitivity, and the potential mediating role of self-esteem and worry. A sample of 125 Iranian college students completed surveys assessing rejection sensitivity, attachment style, worry and self-esteem. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analyses were conducted. Results show that there is a significant positive relationship between anxious attachment styles and rejection sensitivity. The study suggests that a higher score in anxious attachment styles is associated with a higher level of worry and lower level of self-esteem and it is also associated with higher level of rejection sensitivity. Furthermore, there is a positive significant relationship between worry and rejection sensitivity and there is a negative significant relationship between self-esteem and rejection sensitivity. Results indicate that self-esteem and worry mediate the relationship between anxious attachment styles and rejection sensitivity.
Highlights
The present study evaluated the relations between anxious attachment styles and rejection sensitivity, and the potential mediating role of self-esteem and worry
In this study data were analyzed via Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)
This study tested a model of the associations between insecure anxious attachment styles, worry, self-esteem and rejection sensitivity
Summary
The present study evaluated the relations between anxious attachment styles and rejection sensitivity, and the potential mediating role of self-esteem and worry. Results indicate that self-esteem and worry mediate the relationship between anxious attachment styles and rejection sensitivity. The theory suggests that when caregivers tend to meet children’s needs sensitively and consistently, children develop secure working models that incorporate the expectation that others will accept and support them. Bartholomew (1990) developed a four-category model of attachment styles based on the four combinations obtained by dichotomizing the subject’s abstract image of the self into positive (low dependence) or negative (high dependence) on one axis, and dichotomizing the subject’s abstract image of the other into positive (low avoidance) or negative (high avoidance) on an orthogonal axis. This yielded the four attachment categories denoted as secure (positive self, positive other), preoccupied with relationships (negative self, positive other), dismissing of intimacy or dismissing-avoidant (positive self, negative other), and fearful of intimacy or fearful-avoidant (negative self, negative other). Bartholomew and Horowitz (1991) tested this four category model of attachment by developing the instrument Relationship Questionnaire, containing one prototype paragraph for each of the four attachment styles that describes the characteristics of that style (Chotai, Jonasson, Hagglof, & Adolfsson, 2005)
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