ATTACHMENT, PARTNER CHOICE, AND PERCEPTION OF ROMANTIC PARTNERS - AN EXPERIMENTAL TEST OF THE ATTACHMENT-SECURITY HYPOTHESIS

We propose that the primary attachment process that influences partner choice is a normative one, the desire to form a secure attachment ben d, and that a potential partner's attractiveness is, in part, a functi on of the degree to which the partner can offer the opportunity to for m a secure attachment bond. An experimental test of the attachment-sec urity hypothesis was conducted with male and female (N = 282) heterose xual college students in the southeastern United States who had previo usly been classified as having one of four attachment styles: secure, preoccupied, fearful, or dismissive. Participants read scenarios (deri ved from Pietromonaco & Carnelley, 1994) that depicted a relationship with an opposite-sex partner who displayed one of the four attachment styles, rated their reactions to the relationship, and assessed the im aginary partner on 20 personality traits. Results provided support for the attachment-security hypothesis in two ways: (a) secure partners e licited more positive and less negative emotions than all other partne rs, followed by preoccupied partners, who elicited more positive emoti ons than either avoidant type, and (b) for the explicit choice of roma ntic partners, secure partners were preferred to all insecure types, w ho did not differ from each other. Both preoccupied and dismissive par ticipants saw partners similar to themselves as more secure than did t he other participants.