Psychology › Development & attachment › Attachment theory (John Bowlby)
Close relationships: adult attachment and marriage
1987 (adult attachment); Gottman 1990s· Concept
Mixed evidenceSome support; effects smaller or less consistent than once thought.
Research applying attachment ideas to adult love, and studying what makes partnerships last or fail.
See it on the Psychology map →What it says
In 1987 Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver showed that adults describe romantic relationships in patterns resembling infant attachment: secure, anxious (fearing abandonment) or avoidant (uneasy with closeness). Researchers now measure these on two scales, anxiety and avoidance. In the 1990s John Gottman filmed couples arguing in his Seattle 'Love Lab'. Criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling, his 'four horsemen', predicted divorce; stable couples kept roughly five positive exchanges for every negative one.
Why it matters
Relationship quality is among the strongest predictors of adult health and happiness; in the Harvard adult study, satisfaction with relationships at 50 predicted health at 80 better than cholesterol did.
The evidence
Status: mixed evidence. Attachment questionnaires predict relationship satisfaction modestly. Gottman's patterns hold up broadly, but his claims of over 90% accuracy in predicting divorce came from fitting small samples after the fact.
Open questions
How much adult style reflects childhood versus current partners and personality; styles can shift, for example after years in a stable relationship.
Connections (4)
▸Close relationships: adult attachment and marriage extend Attachment theory (John Bowlby)Well replicated
The connection
Bowlby said attachment matters 'from the cradle to the grave'. Researchers took him literally: adult partners act as each other's secure base and safe haven, much as parents do for infants. Adults comfortable with closeness tend to have more satisfying relationships; anxious or avoidant adults report more conflict and insecurity.
Who showed it and when
Cindy Hazan and Phillip Shaver, University of Denver, 1987, through a 'love quiz' printed in the Rocky Mountain News.
The evidence
Hundreds of studies using adult attachment questionnaires and couple observations show these patterns predict relationship satisfaction, though effects are modest.
Open questions
How much an adult's style traces back to infancy; long-term studies find only weak-to-moderate continuity.
▸Close relationships: adult attachment and marriage adapted the categories of Ainsworth's Strange Situation and attachment stylesMixed evidence
The connection
Hazan and Shaver turned Ainsworth's three infant types into three short descriptions of adult romance, secure, avoidant and anxious-ambivalent, and asked adults to pick one. The shares came out close to infant ones: about 56% secure, 25% avoidant, 19% anxious. Later researchers replaced the types with two scales, anxiety and avoidance.
Who showed it and when
Hazan and Shaver's 1987 newspaper survey in Denver; Kim Bartholomew proposed four types in 1991; Kelly Brennan's team built the two-scale measure in 1998.
How solid is it?
The similar percentages are documented, but matching shares do not prove the same people kept the same style from infancy.
Open questions
Whether adult romantic styles really are the infant patterns grown up, or a separate thing that borrows the vocabulary.
▸Harvard Study of Adult Development found the strongest predictor of happiness was Close relationships: adult attachment and marriageWell replicated
The connection
The study's clearest finding is that warm relationships predicted thriving. Men most satisfied with their relationships at 50 were healthiest at 80, a better predictor than cholesterol. Loneliness tracked with earlier decline in health and memory, and good marriages seemed to buffer pain in old age. Vaillant summarized it as 'happiness is love'; Waldinger's 2015 TED talk spread the message.
Who showed it and when
Boston area, data from 1938 onward; George Vaillant's Triumphs of Experience (2012); Robert Waldinger and Marc Schulz's The Good Life (2023).
The evidence
Data collected before outcomes were known, consistent with large meta-analyses linking social ties to health and longevity. Still correlational, and initially only men.
Open questions
Cause or effect: healthier, sunnier people may attract and keep better relationships, and the study cannot fully separate the two.
▸Loneliness and social isolation reflects a shortfall in Close relationships: adult attachment and marriageWell replicated
The connection
Loneliness measures the gap between the connection people want and what they have. Close, supportive relationships, especially a secure partner or confidant, are the strongest buffer; quality matters more than the number of contacts. Marriage helps on average, but an unhappy one can be lonelier than living alone.
Who showed it and when
Daniel Perlman and Letitia Anne Peplau's 1981 'discrepancy' definition of loneliness; later work by John Cacioppo and Louise Hawkley in Chicago.
The evidence
Surveys consistently find relationship quality predicts loneliness better than the number of contacts or whether someone lives alone.
Open questions
Whether the decline in close friendships reported in some US surveys is real, and how online contact fits in, remain debated.