Tailoring dyadic coping strategies to attachment style

Emotion-focused and problem-focused dyadic coping differentially buffer anxiously and avoidantly attached partners

Bibliographic Data

ID2922378
AuthorsLana Vedelago (0000-0002-9188-5574, York University, corresponding author), Rhonda N Balzarini, Rhonda Balzarini (0000-0001-7443-1266, Texas State University), Skye Fitzpatrick (0000-0002-1347-1827, York University), Amy Muise (0000-0002-9000-4106, York University)
Year2023
Volume40
Issue6
Pages1830-1853
Publication date2023-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Social and Personal Relationships (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0265-4075 • E-ISSN: 1460-3608
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/02654075221133575
OpenAlexW4304807926
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited53

Attachment insecurity is associated with lower satisfaction and lower felt security in romantic relationships, especially during times of stress such as coping with a global pandemic. Heightened external stressors for couples are associated with poorer relationship quality, but how couples cope with stress together, or their dyadic coping strategies, is associated with the maintenance of relationship satisfaction. In the current study, we followed 184 couples living together during the COVID-19 pandemic to test whether specific coping strategies buffered people higher in attachment anxiety and avoidance from lower satisfaction and felt security in the early weeks and ensuing months of the pandemic. Our findings demonstrate that perceiving more emotion-focused dyadic coping-being affectionate and using intimacy-buffered the negative association between attachment anxiety and relationship satisfaction and felt security, both concurrently and over several months of the pandemic. In addition, problem-focused perceived dyadic coping backfired for people higher in attachment anxiety; they felt less satisfied when they perceived more problem-focused coping-which involves being solution-focused and using instrumental support-in their relationship. In contrast, people higher in attachment avoidance were buffered against lower relationship satisfaction when they perceived more problem-focused dyadic coping and were not buffered by emotion-focused coping. The current findings suggest the importance of tailoring coping strategies to a partner's attachment style for relationship quality and felt security during times of stress

Anxiety · Attachment theory · Coping (psychology · Developmental psychology · Stressor · Attachment and Relationship Dynamics · Clinical Psychology · Family Dynamics and Relationships · Marriage and Sexual Relationships · Psychology