Marital Attachment Research Articles

Attachment strategies in Japanese urban middle–class couples: A cultural theme analysis of asymmetry in marital relationships

This study introduces a cultural theme analysis to assess within–culture variation in attachment, with special emphasis on asymmetry in Japanese marital roles. Thirty–nine young urban married Japanese couples were interviewed using a modification of the Adult Attachment Interview. The participants also described their marital experiences, viewed both from their own and from their spouse”s perspective, and the ego resiliency of their child. Husbands” attachment strategies vis–à–vis their parents and their adherence to the marital asymmetry theme conjointly influenced their marital attachment security. The secure husband’s strategy seemed to be enhanced by using his “motherly” wife as a secure base, thereby leading to higher marital attachment security. In contrast, the dismissing husband—when adhering to the marital asymmetry theme—appeared to further intensify deactivating strategies by downplaying the emotional significance of his motherly wife. Thus the marital asymmetry theme appears to have different psychological implications for Japanese husbands, depending on their attachment strategies (secure versus dismissive). Conceptual and methodological issues in the study of adult attachment from a cultural perspective are discussed.

Gender, Crime, and Desistance: Toward a Theory of Cognitive Transformation

This article analyzes data derived from the first detailed long‐term follow‐up of a sample of serious adolescent female delinquents and similarly situated males. Neither marital attachment nor job stability, factors frequently associated with male desistance from crime, were strongly related to female or male desistance. A symbolic‐interactionist perspective on desistance is developed as a counterpoint to Sampson and Laub’s theory of informal social control, and life history narratives are used to illustrate the perspective. This cognitive theory is generally compatible with a control approach but (a) adds specificity regarding underlying change mechanisms, (b) explains some negative cases, and (c) fits well with life course challenges facing contemporary serious female (and more provisionally male) offenders.

Marital Attachment Interview: Adult Attachment Assessment of Marriage

We present pilot data of a newly developed attachment measure, the Marital Attachment Interview. This interview was developed to assess adults' representations of their current relationship with a partner as an adjunct to available assessments of relationship representations of parents with young children (infant-parent attachment) and adults with their own parents (adult attachment). From this pilot study of 24 couples, we present: (1) the distribution of marital attachment classifications, (2) the concordance between marital attachment and adult attachment classifications; and (3) the associations between marital attachment classification (representation) and family factors. We then speculate about the utility of this new narrative approach for understanding how attachment in intimate relationships may be useful in appreciating components of intergenerational transmission of attachment.

Marital attachment and adjustment in older couples coping with cancer

In this paper, we examine the role of marital attachment in how older couples adjust to the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Cancer poses a threat to the existence of the attachment bond and activates the attachment system. We hypothesized that those spouses with more secure attachment styles would report better adjustment, i.e. higher marital satisfaction, fewer depressive symptoms, and better perceived health.This study is based on cross-sectional data on 50 couples, 28 couples with cancer and 22 community control couples.We assessed marital attachment using the Rochester Attachment Interview and the Rochester Attachment Coding System.We hypothesized that attachment style would be more salient in cancer couples, i.e. that cancer would act as a moderating variable. We found that secure attachment in wives was associated with higher marital satisfaction for husbands and wives and greater perceived health for wives with no significant interaction effect. The association of husbands' attachment style was moderated by the presence of cancer. The secure attachment of husbands in cancer couples was associated with poorer adjustment for wives: higher depressive symptoms and lower perceived health for wives.We discuss the theoretical and clinical implications of our findings.

Differences in Imagined Interactions as a Consequence of Marital Ideology and Attachment

This study examined the relationship between attachment theory and Fitzpatrick's [1] marital typology based on traditional, independent, and separate ideologies in terms of imagined interactions or covert dialogues that individuals have with relational partners. According to attachment theory, individuals have internal schemata of themselves and their relationships which provide expectancies for adult relationships. These expectancies are reflected in secure, anxious/ambivalent, and avoidant attachment based on the typology derived by Hazan and Shaver [2]. A series of five hypotheses were tested exploring the relationship between attachment styles, marital types, and the prediction of attachment as a function of having imagined interactions with a relational partner in which individuals imagine talking with significant others about important relationship issues. The data revealed that sharing as a marital ideology was associated with a secure attachment and negatively associated with an anxious/ambivalent attachment. In addition, the data revealed that an anxious/ambivalent attachment was associated with having discrepant imagined interactions and that a secure attachment was associated with rehearsing messages that were vivid and nondiscrepant from real encounters. Results are discussed in terms of attachment theory, imagined interaction functions, and marital ideologies.

Deconstructing family mediation practice via the simulated client technique: The case of unresolved marital attachment

AbstractData about the nature of the interventions of family mediators and the degree to which they incorporate particular items of divorce law and current divorce‐related research into their practice are largely lacking. This article presents the results of a study examining the working methods of twenty Canadian family mediators using a “simulated client” data‐gathering technique in which mediators were briefed to interview the researchers as a divorcing couple who had come to them for an initial mediation session. The study yielded rich data that are systematic and comparable in relation to a range of core issues in the mediation field, including spouse abuse, power imbalance, dealing with the termination of the marital relationship, structured versus therapeutic approaches, and neutralist versus interventionist styles; mediators' handling of the problem of unresolved marital attachment is examined here.

Marital attachment interview pilot study

Marital attachment interview pilot study

Internal Working Models of Relationships and Marital Communication

Two studies were conducted to examine marital schemata, attachment relations, and marital communication. The first study involved 162 couples who completed questionnaires concerning dimensions of importance in their marriage, their attachment patterns, and communication patterns during conflict. The second study consisted of in-depth interviews of 18 individuals concerning their memories of early family life and concurrent relational functioning. It was hypothesized that partners who shared the same marital schema would also have similar attachment patterns. This hypothesis was not supported by the data. It was also predicted that couples in different types of marriages would report different patterns of communication during conflict. This hypothesis was strongly supported. Finally, it was predicted that the Separate marital types would have a less secure attachment style than either the Traditional or the Independent marital types because they exhibit less interdependence with their spouses and are more likely to avoid conflict with them. Both Separates and Independents had an avoidant attachment style. Traditionals had the most secure attachment style. The interview data indicated that Traditionals were preoccupied with their relationships, whereas Independents were somewhat dismissive. Directions for future research are discussed.

Divorce in the Kibbutz: lessons to be drawn.

The kibbutz in Israel constitutes one of the few places in Western culture where one is able to examine the essence of an "authentic emotional divorce" because of the minor role of factors that are extraneous to the disruption of the emotional marital attachment itself. This is the case because the kibbutz is a society that is based and functions upon principles that neutralize to a large extent the legal, economic, and co-parenting obstacles to a constructive divorce. Although there are significant differences in the severity of the postdivorce conflict, the divorce crisis is rather similar in kibbutz and non-kibbutz settings regarding both the quality of the emotional responses and the nature of the influencing factors--thus pointing to the ubiquitousness of the human condition.

Crime and Deviance in the Life Course

Criminological research has emphasized the strong relationship between age and crime, with involvement in most crimes peaking in adolescence and then declining. However, there is also evidence of the early onset of delinquency and of the stability of criminal and deviant behavior over the life course. In this essay we reconcile these findings by synthesizing and integrating longitudinal research on childhood antisocial behavior, adolescent delinquency, and adult crime with theory and research on the life course. Consistent with a life-course perspective, we focus on continuities and discontinuities in deviant behavior over time and on the social influences of age-graded transitions and salient life events. Furthermore, we critically assess the implications of stability and change for longitudinal research. We conclude with an emerging research agenda for studying the relationship of crime and deviance with a broad range of social phenomena (e .g. occupational attainment, opportunity structures, marital attachment) over the life course.

Crime and Deviance over the Life Course: The Salience of Adult Social Bonds

Analyzing the natural histories of two samples of boys that differ dramatically in childhood delinquency, we test a model of crime and deviance over the life course. The first hypothesis is that childhood antisocial behavior predicts problems in adult development across a wide variety of dimensions. Second, we argue that social bonds in adulthood--to work and family--explain changes in crime and deviance over the life span. The longitudinal data were reconstructed from the Gluecks' classic study of delinquent and non-delinquent males from childhood to age 32. Childhood delinquency is linked to adult crime, alcohol abuse, general deviance, economic dependency, educational failure, unemployment, divorce, and even charges in the military. Despite this continuity, job stability and strong marital attachment in adulthood inhibit adult criminal and deviant behavior. The results support a model of informal social control that recognizes both stability and change in antisocial behavior over the life course. Language: en

Criminality of heroin users presenting to an Australian hospital‐based drug and alcohol unit

The rates of criminality of two groups of heroin users presenting to Westmead Hospital were studied. Forty-seven heroin users referred by a structured court diversion scheme (DACAP) were compared with 45 self-referred heroin users. Demographic data, heroin use measures, non-narcotic drug use, and alcohol use were collected by semi-structured interview. Official records were used for measures of criminality. This provided a comprehensive profile of conviction and incarceration rates. Each sample was compared on the age at presentation, intensity and duration of heroin use, and presenting rates of criminality. Results demonstrated the DACAP sample was significantly less heroin involved at presentation with a marginally shorter history of use. Comparisons on criminality demonstrated no difference between samples on six measures. The DACAP group recorded significantly higher levels on two criminality measures, the reverse of what was hypothesized. It is suggested that the DACAP diversion scheme generates a distinct subpopulation of heroin users, characterized by younger age, lower education, less marital attachment, poorer employment history, earlier onset of antisocial behaviour and comparable criminality. Identifiable subpopulations of heroin users appear to be generated by the different referral sources: legal or health oriented. The utility of diverting a more criminally and socially dysfunctional group to treatment agencies is discussed.