Self-esteem and the quest for felt security: How perceived regard regulates attachment processes

The authors proposed that personal feelings of self-esteem foster the level of confidence in a partner's regard critical for satisfying attachments. D ating and married couples described themselves, their partners, how they th ought their partners saw them, and how they wanted their partners to see th em on a variety of interpersonal qualities. The results revealed that low s elf-esteem individuals dramatically underestimated how positively their par tners saw them. Such unwarranted and unwanted insecurities were associated with less generous perceptions of partners and lower relationship well-bein g. The converse was true for high self-esteem individuals. A longitudinal e xamination of the dating couples revealed that the vulnerabilities of lows were only exacerbated over rime. A dependency regulation model is proposed, wherein felt security in a partner's perceived regard is suggested as a pr ime mechanism linking self-esteem to relational well-being.