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Love imagined: Working models of future romantic attachment in emerging adults
Author(s) -
MOHR JONATHAN,
COOKLYON RACHEL,
KOLCHAKIAN MISTY R.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
personal relationships
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.81
H-Index - 83
eISSN - 1475-6811
pISSN - 1350-4126
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-6811.2010.01281.x
Subject(s) - closeness , psychology , romance , abandonment (legal) , attachment theory , perspective (graphical) , developmental psychology , anxiety , social psychology , psychoanalysis , mathematical analysis , mathematics , artificial intelligence , psychiatry , political science , computer science , law
An attachment theory perspective guided this investigation of emerging adults' ( N = 174) expectations regarding relational patterns in their future long‐term romantic relationships. Participants' working models of future romantic attachment were assessed by having them respond to an attachment measure with respect to an imagined future committed relationship. Dimensions of future attachment predicted participants' anticipated relationship dynamics in the imagined relationship, their focus on closeness and abandonment when writing about having a future long‐term relationship, and their change in state anxiety over the course of the study. These effects of future attachment remained statistically significant after controlling for current global attachment, parental caregiving sensitivity, and conflict between parents; most of these effects were not moderated by current dating status.