Attachment styles and mate-retention: Exploring the mediating role of relationship satisfaction.
- 1 October 2022
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Psychological Association (APA) in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences
- Vol. 16 (4), 362-370
- https://doi.org/10.1037/ebs0000272
Abstract
This study investigated whether relationship satisfaction mediates the association between attachment styles and mate-retention strategies. Four-hundred and twenty individuals in a heterosexual committed relationship participated in this study (79.7% women; M-age = 23.22, SDage = 8.07). Participants completed questionnaires assessing attachment styles, relationship satisfaction, and mate-retention strategies. The results replicated previous findings by showing that insecure attachment is positively associated with benefit-provisioning and cost-inflicting mate-retention strategies and extended previous research by showing that relationship satisfaction mediates these associations. The present findings confirm evolutionary predictions on romantic relationships that relationship satisfaction may serve as a monitor determining how individuals act to preserve their relationships.Keywords
Funding Information
- Ministry of Education – Brazil (99999.001967/2015-00)
This publication has 21 references indexed in Scilit:
- An investment model of sociosexuality, relationship satisfaction, and commitment: Evidence from dating, engaged, and newlywed couplesJournal of Research in Personality, 2015
- Why Do Humans Form Long-Term Mateships? An Evolutionary Game-Theoretic ModelPublished by Elsevier BV ,2015
- Hayes, Andrew F. (2013). Introduction to Mediation, Moderation, and Conditional Process Analysis: A Regression‐Based Approach. New York, NY: The Guilford PressJournal of Educational Measurement, 2014
- Relationship Duration Moderates Associations Between Attachment and Relationship QualityPersonality and Social Psychology Review, 2013
- How anxious and avoidant attachment affect romantic relationship quality differently: A meta‐analytic reviewEuropean Journal of Social Psychology, 2012
- Mediation Analysis in Social Psychology: Current Practices and New RecommendationsSocial and Personality Psychology Compass, 2011
- Adult Attachment and Male Aggression in Couple Relationships: The Demand-Withdraw Communication Pattern and Relationship Satisfaction as MediatorsJournal of Interpersonal Violence, 2010
- Statistical power analyses using G*Power 3.1: Tests for correlation and regression analysesBehavior Research Methods, 2009
- The Mate Retention Inventory-Short Form (MRI-SF)Personality and Individual Differences, 2008
- Testing the ruler with item response theory: Increasing precision of measurement for relationship satisfaction with the Couples Satisfaction Index.Journal of Family Psychology, 2007