Social, Personality & Abnormal Meetings
Vivian Zayas
Unpacking Adult Attachment: A Multilevel Perspective
Attachment relationships have long been shown to be vital to well-being. Early research on adult attachment with partners and peers has taken a trait approach, focusing on individual differences in the characteristic ways people feel, think, and behave in attachment relationships (or a person's *adult attachment style*). Despite the emphasis on the consistency of attachment experiences across situations, relationships, and time, people also show considerable intraindividual variability in their attachment experiences. The same person may feel secure in her relationship one moment, but insecure in the next, and a person who feels secure in one relationship may feel insecure in another. In the present talk, I describe a multilevel model of the adult attachment system that accounts for trait-level, between-person, individual differences, as well as contextualized, within-person, intraindividual differences in attachment behaviors and experiences. I will present research findings that elucidate the structure and dynamics of the adult attachment system.
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