Collaborative Research: Separating transient and enduring forms of change in adult attachment styles

合作研究：区分成人依恋风格的短暂和持久变化形式

• 批准号: 1423874
• 负责人: R. Chris Fraley
• 金额: $ 44万
• 依托单位: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-09-15 至 2019-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1423874&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Separating; transient; enduring

Having strong close relationships with others is associated with health and well-being. However, people vary in how secure they are in their close relationships. Although some people are relatively confident that others will be available and supportive when needed, other people are not. These individual differences, or what social and personality psychologists sometimes refer to as attachment styles, have broad consequences for interpersonal functioning, emotion regulation, and health. How stable are attachment styles? Do certain life experiences (e.g., starting a new relationship, losing a loved one) have the potential to change attachment styles? And, if so, are these changes temporary or are they enduring? These relatively basic questions, despite being foundational for the field, have been difficult to answer; the proposed research will address this critical gap. More broadly, the proposed work will provide valuable information on what kinds of experiences can be catalysts for change. Given that attachment relationships can play a role in mental and physical health, this research may shed light on how shifts in interpersonal processes and experiences could facilitate well-being.The primary focus of the proposed research is to determine what kinds of life events and interpersonal experiences lead to enduring vs. transient changes in attachment security. To accomplish this, people will be recruited to complete self-report measures of attachment styles, personality, and interpersonal experiences once a month for a period of 24 months. This research methodology has the potential to advance our understanding of stability and change in in two crucial ways. First, previous studies have rarely had access to multiple assessments of attachment style following important life events, making it difficult to know whether changes in security are fleeting. Second, researchers rarely have access to multiple assessments of attachment style before specific life events take place, making it difficult to know how people were (or were not) changing before specific life events. The longitudinal methods in the current research will allow estimation of trajectories of security before and after naturally occurring life events. Moreover, because the proposed research addresses a set of issues that are of broad significance in social, developmental, and personality psychology, this investigation has the potential to contribute to a framework for understanding stability and change in personality and interpersonal processes more generally.

与他人保持密切的关系与健康和幸福有关。然而，人们在亲密关系中的安全程度不同。虽然有些人相对自信，认为其他人在需要时会提供支持，但其他人则不然。这些个体差异，或者社会和人格心理学家有时称之为依恋风格，对人际功能、情绪调节和健康有着广泛的影响。依恋类型有多稳定？某些生活经历（例如，开始一段新的关系，失去一个心爱的人）有可能改变依恋风格？如果是这样，这些变化是暂时的还是持久的？这些相对基本的问题，尽管是该领域的基础，一直难以回答;拟议的研究将解决这一关键差距。更广泛地说，拟议的工作将提供宝贵的信息，说明什么样的经验可以成为变革的催化剂。鉴于依恋关系可以在心理和身体健康中发挥作用，本研究可能会揭示人际过程和经验的变化如何促进幸福感。拟议研究的主要重点是确定什么样的生活事件和人际经验导致持久的依恋安全性变化。为了实现这一目标，人们将被招募来完成自我报告的依恋风格，个性和人际交往经验的措施，每月一次，为期24个月。这种研究方法有可能在两个关键方面促进我们对稳定和变化的理解。首先，以前的研究很少有机会在重要的生活事件之后对依恋风格进行多重评估，因此很难知道安全感的变化是否是短暂的。其次，研究人员很少能够在特定的生活事件发生之前获得对依恋风格的多项评估，因此很难了解人们在特定的生活事件发生之前是如何（或没有）改变的。在目前的研究中的纵向方法将允许估计的轨迹的安全之前和之后自然发生的生活事件。此外，由于拟议的研究解决了一系列在社会，发展和人格心理学中具有广泛意义的问题，因此这项调查有可能为更普遍地理解人格和人际关系过程的稳定性和变化提供一个框架。