SOCIAL FLEXIBILITY AND ANXIOUS ATTACHMENT

Social flexibility was predicted to correlate with anxious/ambivalent attachment among individuals reminded of attachment-related uncertaint ies. In the experiment reported here, subjects wrote about positive ve rsus negative relationship events and then responded to a series of in terpersonal conflict situations Correlations between their responses a nd previously obtained attachment style scores provide supportive evid ence for the predictions The results suggest that anxious/ambivalent a ttachment may limit social flexibility by interfering with information processing in complex social situations Results are discussed in term s of models of test anxiety.