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Previous research suggests a relation between attachment style and the degree of satisfaction one experiences in a romantic relationship (Feeney 2002; Keelan, Dion, and Dion 1998; Meyers and Landsberger 2002). However, few studies have examined how attachment is related to specific features of relational functioning. This study examined the relationship history of both single and married men and women, to discern which aspects of this history and which dimensions (anxiety/avoidance) and attachment style categories (secure, enmeshed-preoccupied, avoidant-dismissive, avoidant-fearful) predict cohesiveness, consensus, satisfaction, affectional expression, and overall adjustment in one's romantic relationship.
An ethnically diverse sample of 90 undergraduate and graduate students from Adelphi University, who had ever been or were at the time of the study involved in a monogamous romantic relationship of at least three months’ duration were studied. The 33 men and 57 women in the sample ranged in age from 17 to 50 (Mean = 22.96, SD = 7.23); 80% were Caucasian, 3.3% African American, 3.3% Hispanic, 1.19% Native American, 6.7% Asian, and 6.7% other.
Participants were asked to complete a measure of attachment, Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised (Brennan, Clark, and Shaver 1996), and a measure of relational functioning, the Dyadic Adjustment Scale, or DAS (Spanier 1976). Additionally, participants completed a series of questions concerning a particular past or current relationship, the historical status of their relationship (whether it is past or current), marital status, whether the relationship had ever been broken off and then resumed, the number of breakups that had occurred over the course of the relationship, the number of past serious relationships in which the individual had been involved, and the length of the relationship.
Four demographic variables (age, marital status, status of the relationship, and number of breakups) were found to be signif