Attachment Insecurity and Abuse in Adolescent Romantic Relationships Erin Miga, Joseph P' Allen

1
Attachment Insecurity and Abuse in Adolescent
Romantic Relationships Erin Miga, Joseph P.
Allen Nell ManningUniversity of VirginiaThis
study was made possible by funding from the
National Institute of Mental Health awarded to
Joseph P. Allen, Principal Investigator(Grant
R01-MH58066)
Abstract This study examines the association
between attachment insecurity and physical and
psychological maltreatment in adolescent romantic
relationships. Data were collected from 98
adolescents at age 14, and again at adolescent
mean age of 18. Higher levels of adolescent
attachment preoccupation was associated with
perpetration of psychological abuse against their
partners. Higher levels of adolescent dismissing
attachment was associated with being the target
of psychological abuse from their partners. The
dyadic interaction of adolescents scoring lower
on romantic attachment avoidance and partners
scoring higher on romantic attachment anxiety
predicted higher levels of teens physical abuse
towards their partners.
Method
3) Teen romantic avoidance predicted increases
in romantic partner criticism of the teen (ß.
39, plt.0001)( see Table 2). 4) Partner anxiety
predicted teen report of increases in
partner physical abuse and blame during
conflict(ß.26, plt.05).

• Participants
• Data were collected from a larger multi-method,
  multi-reporter, longitudinal study of
  adolescent development in the context of peer and
  family relationships
• 98 target adolescents (41 male, 57 female) were
  first interviewed at age 14.3
• Target teens 56 European American and 44
  minority or mixed ethnic group
• Adolescents were then re-interviewed at age 18.3
  with their romantic partners
• Couples had been dating for an average of 15
  months
• Procedures
• Wave 1 Adolescents interviewed at approximately
  14 years of age.
• Wave 2 Adolescents and their romantic partners
  re-interviewed at approximately 18 years of age.
• Measures
• Adult Attachment Interview and Q-set (AAI,
  George, Kaplan, Main, 1996 Q-sort, Kobak et
  al, 1993). Participants were asked to explain
  their childhood relationships with each of their
  parents and to recall examples supporting their
  depictions. Individuals were assigned adult
  attachment classifications based on the coherence
  of their responses. The Attachment Q-sort
  procedure was used to determine a continuous
  score of both the preoccupied and dismissing
  attachment dimensions.
• Conflict in Relationships (Wolfe, Reitzel-Jaffe,
  Gough, Wekerle, 1994). Teens and their
  romantic partners reported on the frequency of
  their partners use of physically abusive,
  sexually coercive, and emotionally manipulative
  tactics during conflict in the past year.

Introduction

• Background
• Intimate partner violence is a relatively common
  phenomenon among adolescent couples found in
  10-25 of couples in large-scale studies.
• This trend is of particular concern because
• Romantic relationships play a crucial role in
  adolescent development (Furman, 2002).
• Aggression in adolescent intimate relationships
  can set the stage for volatile marital and
  parent-child relationships in the future.
• Attachment Theory
• Intimacy anger violence that men exhibit in an
  effort to maintain proximity to their partner
  when they perceive their romantic attachment
  relationship to be threatened (Dutton, Saunders,
  Starzomski, Bartholomew, 1994).
• Insecure-preoccupied attachment
• Preoccupied individuals may exhibit vacillations
  between intensely positive and negation emotions
  excessive dependence on attachment relationships
  
• Insecure-dismissing attachment
• Dismissing individuals may withdraw during
  periods of intense emotion minimize importance
  of intimacy, emotional experiences, and
  communication in relationships
• Adolescent partner violence as a dyadic process
• Females and males exhibit comparable rates of
  aggressive behaviors, albeit differing in
  intensity (Archer, 2000), yet most studies place
  an exclusive focus on males as sole perpetrators
  of partner aggression.

5) Teen romantic avoidance moderated the
relationship between partner anxiety and teen
physical abuse. Romantic partner anxiety
predicted increases in teen physical abuse when
teen avoidance was low, while more avoidant teens
were unaffected by their partners anxious
attachment.


Conclusions
Results

• Results provide evidence for preoccupied and
  dismissing working models of attachment serving
  as unique risk factors for later perpetration and
  victimization of psychological abuse in
  adolescent romantic relationships.
• Results highlight the importance of viewing
  relationship violence as a dyadic process
  severity of aggressive behavior may vary as a
  function of each partners romantic attachment
  style.
• Lack of gender differences found for perpetration
  of partner violence supports previous findings
  for comparable rates of aggression across gender.
• Exhibiting avoidant strategies in the face of
  conflict may be a protective factor against
  exhibiting physical violence towards ones
  partner.

Hierarchical regression analyses using Full
Information Maximum Likelihood revealed that

• Teen attachment preoccupation at age 14 predicted
  partner report of increases in teen verbal abuse
  at age 18, after controlling for
  insecure-dismissing attachment ((ß. 41, plt.01).

References
2) Teen dismissing attachment at age 14
predicted increases in
romantic partner use of verbal abuse against the
teen at age 18 (ß.28 , p lt.05).
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