Open AccessAre 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
Author(s) -
Tomotaka Umemura,
Aneta Siroňová,
Lenka Lacinová,
Emiko Taniguchi,
Tatsuya Imai
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0244278
Subject(s) - closeness , psychology , hierarchy , romance , attachment theory , normative , social psychology , developmental psychology , preference , strange situation , psychoanalysis , mathematical analysis , philosophy , mathematics , epistemology , market economy , microeconomics , economics
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.