When thinking about what to write about around relationships, I was originally thinking of reviewing any article written by John and Julie Gottman – the relationship duo typically mentioned for their work in relationships. Whether it be predicting divorce rates, how to have healthy marriages, and much more – their work is quite deep on these topics. However, I wound up stumbling on something that sounded much more interesting – an article by Furman & Colibee from the University of Denver titled The Past is Present: Representations of Parents, Friends and Romantic Partners Predict Subsequent Romantic Representations.
This journal article (Furman & Collibee, 2018) stood out to me because I was curious if childhood trauma (ie. death of a parent, parental divorce, etc), as well as bad dating experiences, can influence future relationships. The researchers were attempting to back up the behavioral systems theory – in which “the attachment, caregiving, affiliative, and sexual behavioral systems are conceptualized as key facets of romantic relationships.” Not only this but to extend it a level further by following 200 10th graders over 7.5 years with various questionnaires and interviews to assess “avoidant and anxious representations of their relationships.” There are two primary attachment theory models that are important to know prior to delving into the results found from this study. The authors focus on these two First, people with the avoidant romantic style “are not comfortable with intimacy or closeness and prefer self-reliance, do not enjoy caring for the other, and value the activity rather than the companionship of the other.” Others with the anxious romantic style “may worry about the other person’s availability, provide excessive care, and are more invested in the relationship than the other person.” It is important to note that you can be measured high on the avoidant and anxious scale – which leads to a more fearful relationship (Bartholomew, 1990) – and you can be measured low on both metrics – which leads to comfortability with the other partner in the relationship. Understand that this is a very high-level view of relationship styles and if you are looking for more information, you can view more here.
By interviewing the 200 study participants multiple times over the course of seven and a half years, the researchers were able to have results consistent to the behavioral systems theory that relationships with parents, friends, and romantic partners in adolescence were associated with subsequent levels of representations of romantic relationships over time. These results were consistent with the self-report measure and the interview measure. One finding that was particularly interesting was that regardless of avoidant or anxious friendships, they both contributed to increases in avoidant/anxious romantic relationships over time. When looking at relationships with parents, the researchers found that the child-parent relationship was most heavily predictive for the first round of self-reporting/interviewing over the 7.5-year study. However, this parent-child relationship is not predictive of romantic relationships over the entire study.
After reading this study, I am walking away with more directions to focus on topics that I find particularly interesting in the realm of relationships. Whether gender, divorced parents, etc play a role in the relationship attachment style that you develop from a young age thru your entire life. I’m curious if major life events also contribute to the shifting of your attachment style – like finding out a partner has cheated on you, I would postulate, would shift the style from anxious to avoidant – or even make both anxious and avoidant high. I’m also curious if going to see a relationship therapist would help quell these negative behaviors that stem from relationship attachment styles.
If you are interested in learning more about your personal relationship attachment style, you can take a quiz here for free.
References –
Bartholomew, K. (1990). Avoidance of intimacy: An attachment perspective. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 7, 147–178. doi:10.1177/0265407590072001
Furman, W., & Collibee, C. (2018). The Past Is Present: Representations of Parents, Friends, and Romantic Partners Predict Subsequent Romantic Representations. Child Development, 1, 188. https://doi-org.ezproxy.umuc.edu/10.1111/cdev.12712