Attachment theory focuses on cognitive schemas that individuals use to organize and manage their relationships with others (Cassidy & Shaver, 1999). These schemas develop over time, beginning in infancy and continuing through childhood and adolescence, and are shaped by repeated experiences with primary attachment figures (Rothbard & Shaver, 1994). Individual differences in attachment styles in adults are conceptualized in terms of two dimensions: anxiety and avoidance (Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998). "Anxiety" refers to the extent to which individuals feel insecure about themselves and fear abandonment or rejection; "avoidance" refers to the extent to which individuals avoid closeness with others (Hazan & Shaver, 1994). Attachment styles are predictive of caregiving behavior in relationships (Collins & Feeney, 2000). The purpose of the proposed study is to see whether attachment style is also predictive of self-care.

Private speech, originally termed egocentric speech (Vygotsky, 1962/ 1934), is speech that is self-directed and used for the purpose of emotional, psychological, and behavioral regulation. It is traditionally studied in children because private speech is externally voiced until around age 8, after which point it becomes internalized (Diaz & Lowe, 1987). However, people continue to use private speech through adolescence and into adulthood as a means of self-regulation (John-Steiner, 1992). Researchers have distinguished between three kinds of private speech (Berk, 1986): task-irrelevant (e.g., thinking about what to cook for dinner); task-relevant, non-facilitative (e.g., thinking about how frustrating the task at hand is); and task-relevant, facilitative (e.g., figuring out how to best solve a problem). In children, these different kinds of private speech predict performance on tasks, emotional adjustment, and reactions to challenging situations (Manning, White, & Daugherty, 1994). In the proposed study, we will examine how attachment-style dimensions moderate the kind of private speech used by adults in self-soothing.

  Over the past decade, attachment researchers have developed and improved several different self-report measures tapping individual differences in adult attachment style (see Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998, for a review). Currently, the consensus in the field is that attachment patterns are best conceptualized using two independent dimensions - anxiety and avoidance. Attachment research has strongly supported the internal, external, and predictive validity of this bi-dimensional approach.

  The purpose of this research is to study both members of couples over time to see how attachment variables, excessive reassurance seeking, and negative information seeking are related to depression.

Attachment style develops in childhood, beginning in infancy, based on the child’s relationship with his or her primary caregiver, and affects an individual’s relationships throughout life. An individual can have a secure style, meaning he or she is comfortable and well-adjusted in close relationships, or an insecure style, meaning he or she is either intimacy-avoidant or anxious and clingy in relationships. Previous research shows that insecure attachment styles are associated with depression. Preliminary research also reveals a link between attachment anxiety and the tendency to engage in excessive reassurance seeking (constantly asking one's partner for affirmation of his/her love, etc.), which Joiner, Metalsky, Katz, and Beach (1999) have shown to be a cause of depression and a predictor of relationship failure.

In accordance with this research, we predict that attachment-related anxiety will be highly correlated with excessive reassurance seeking, and both of these variables will be correlated with depression, both concurrent and over time. We expect that the correlation between anxiety and depression will be mediated by excessive reassurance seeking, suggesting that this is one of the major aspects of attachment anxiety that causes depression. In addition, we predict that attachment-related avoidance will be correlated with negative information seeking (or negative self-verification; Swann, 1996), and both of these variables will be correlated with depression, both concurrent and over time. The correlation between avoidance and depression, therefore, will be mediated by negative information seeking.

  Human mate poaching, behavior intended to attract someone already in a romantic relationship, is viewed as evolutionarily adaptive given the restrictions on the availability of exclusive mates. Previous research (Schmitt & Buss, 2001) found that poaching is a common mating strategy and that the psychological characteristics of mate poachers are different from those of people who engage in general romantic attraction.

One category of individual difference variables not previously included in the study of mate poaching is the one deriving from attachment theory. Individual differences on the dimensions of attachment-related anxiety and avoidance predict differences in the ways people experience romantic and sexual relationships. People who are securely attached (low on anxiety and avoidance) have stable, satisfying relationships. Those who are predominantly anxious become obsessed with their partners and experience low relationship satisfaction. Predominantly avoidant individuals are less interested in relationships, especially long-term committed ones, and have more accepting attitudes toward casual sex.

Based on the different mating and relating patterns exhibited by people with different attachment styles, we predicted corresponding differences in mate poaching tendencies and experiences: 1) In the context of short-term relationships, people high in avoidance will be particularly likely to make and respond favorably to poaching attempts, because they tend to engage in casual sex and avoid commitment to long-term relationships. 2) People high in anxiety will be especially concerned about poaching attempts made on their partners regardless of temporal context, because they worry about abandonment and behave possessively toward their partners.

Participants filled out questionnaires containing a) the Anonymous Romantic Attraction Survey, a measure including questions about participants’ experiences as poachers, poaching attempts made on their partners, and times in which participants were targets of poaching efforts, with all three categories of questions answered with respect to long-term and short-term relationships; b) the Sexy Seven Measure, which assesses 7 sexuality-related attributes such as relationship exclusivity (Schmitt & Buss, 2000); c) the Experiences in Close Relationships scale, which measures attachment-related anxiety and avoidance (Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998); and d) the Big Five Inventory, which assesses 5 general personality traits.

A series of multiple regression analyses predicting the poaching variables from a combination of gender, avoidance, anxiety, the Big Five, and the Sexy Seven supported both of our hypotheses. People high in avoidance were more likely than those low in avoidance to make and respond favorably to poaching attempts in the context of short-term relationships, but not long-term relationships. Anxious people tend to think that their partners could be successfully poached for both affairs and long-term relationships, a valid fear considering that anxiety is the sole factor predicting others’ actual success of at poaching one’s partner.