AN EXPLORATION OF THE RELATIONAL SCHEMATA UNDERLYING ATTACHMENT STYLES - SELF-REPORT AND LEXICAL DECISION APPROACHES

It is proposed that the cognitive mechanisms underlying attachment sty les are expectations about interaction with significant others. Two st udies are described that assessed these relational schemata. The first study revealed that individuals of different attachment styles do hav e different expectations about likely patterns of interaction with a r omantic partner in various interpersonal domains. The second study dem onstrated the utility of the lexical decision task for examining inter personal expectancies. When given a related context, secure subjects w ere quicker to identify words representing positive interpersonal outc omes, whereas insecure subjects were quicker to identify negative outc ome words. Methodological and conceptual implications of a relational schema approach to attachment styles are discussed.