Adult Attachment Nad Stategic Relational Communication Essay — страница 2

loneliness and even depression. In all reality, studying adult attachment could lead to cures for depression and other such diseases. METHOD According to past research done by Bartholomew and Horowitz, this particular hypothesis for the attachment theory perspective predicts that people with different love schemas will communicate in ways that reflect their predisposition towards being comfortable or uncomfortable with closeness and/or intimacy, (Bachman & Zakahi). The hypothesis seems to fit well with the conceptual framework because they both relate back to the caregiver. How the caregiver treats the infant or toddler and how that child responds back is a learned phenomenon that stays with the person into adulthood. To elaborate, those scoring high on the secure and clingy

attachment scales seem comfortable with closeness and are eager to be in relationships. Therefore, scores for secure and clingy types should be positively correlated with the different affinity seeking strategies. Those scoring high on the skittish, casual and uninterested scales are generally more comfortable with independence and less interested in relationships. Therefore, they should be less likely to engage in affinity seeking. The hypotheses are as follows: Hypothesis 1: Scores on the secure schema will be positively related to the likelihood of using affinity-seeking strategies. Hypothesis 2: Scores on the clingy schema will be positively related to the likelihood of using affinity-seeking strategies. Hypothesis 3: Scores on the skittish schema will be negatively related

to the likelihood of using affinity-seeking strategies. Hypothesis 4: Scores on the casual schema will be negatively related to the likelihood of using affinity-seeking strategies. Hypothesis 5: Scores on the uninterested schema will be negatively related to the likelihood of using affinity-seeking strategies. While Bachman & Zakahi came up with the 5 hypotheses above, they found it hard to propose a direst hypothesis for the fickle schema. They came up with a non-directional hypothesis instead. Hypothesis 6: The fickle love schema will be related to the likelihood of using affinity-seeking strategies. This is a reasonable number of hypotheses for the material being studied and these hypotheses are straightforward and simple to understand. For each one of these hypotheses,

there is no independent variable. It is believed that there are two dependent variables in each hypothesis: each of the different schemas and the likelihood of using the affinity-seeking strategies. The conceptual definition of each of the schemas is as follows: the secure types are equally comfortable being close to their partners and being independent; clingy types are comfortable being close to their partners but uncomfortable being independent, causing them to be excessively dependant on their lovers; and the skittish types are uncomfortable with closeness but comfortable being independent, causing them to be overly self reliant. The fickle types are uncomfortable with both closeness and independence and seem to be torn between them. Those who hold a casual love schema may

not have learned to balance intimacy and dependence. Finally, the uninterested are not at all concerned about being in close relationships. The love schemas were measured on the Love Schema Scale, which has been used in a number of other studies. It presents participants with short descriptions of each of the schemas and asks them how well it describes them. The conceptual definition of affinity-seeking strategies is “The active social communicative process by which individuals attempt to get others to like and feel positive toward them” (Bachman & Zakahi, p. 13.). The affinity-seeking strategies were measured using Bell and Daly’s typology, which is a 25 item self report measure that uses a 7-point scale, (Bachman & Zakahi). PARTICIPANTS Initially, the study

started with 399 college students; 170 men, 228 women, and one person did not indicate his/her sex. The average age of these students was 23.6 years. Of these students, 253 of them were currently in a relationship. All participants were undergraduates at a southwestern state university; enrolled in communication, sociology, or biology courses, and recruited on a voluntary basis. All of these participants were asked to complete a questionnaire and only those who were currently in a romantic relationship initiated within the last 12 months were included in this study. This method provided 117 respondents and included 43 males and 75 females whose mean age was 22.5 years old. This was a good way to perform this study because of memory issues. It would be hard to recall many details