Attachment Models and Their Relationships With Anxiety, Worry, and Depression
Author(s): Laura E. Simonelli, William J. Ray, Aaron L. Pincus
Abstract: The current study examines the manner in which adult attachment styles are related to anxiety, worry, and depression levels. Participants included 1040 individuals who completed the Adult Attachment Scale (AAS), The State Trait Anxiety Inventory, The Penn State Worry Questionnaire, and The Beck Depression Inventory. The AAS measures were also mapped onto the Multi-Item Measure of Adult Romantic Attachment. The results support the hypotheses that attachment models are related to self-reported levels of anxiety, worry, and depression with some exceptions. All of the AAS measures of attachment were indicative of anxiety and worry, but comfort with closeness was not a predictor of depression levels. The four attachment styles-secure, dismissing, preoccupied, and fearful-were related to anxiety, worry and depression levels. However, preoccupied and fearfully attached participants did not differ from each other for any measure, and secure and dismissing types did not differ in experiences of worry or depression. Overall, our results give further support to the idea that the negative affect, such as anxiety, reflected in attachment models shares a common nexus with that experienced in psychopathology especially in terms of anxiety, worry and depression.
Keywords: Attachment, Anxiety, Worry, Depression
Article: e13002
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