164 Part II Psychodynamic Theories
specifically, these investigators expected that people who had secure early attach-
ments with their caregivers would experience more trust, closeness, and positive
emotions in their adult love relationships than would people in either of the two
insecure groups. Likewise, they predicted that avoidant adults would fear closeness
and lack trust, whereas anxious-ambivalent adults would be preoccupied with and
obsessed by their relationships.
Using college students and other adults, Hazan and Shaver found support for
each of these predictions. Securely attached adults did experience more trust and close-
ness in their love relationships than did avoidant or anxious-ambivalent adults. More-
over, the researchers found that securely attached adults were more likely than insecure
adults to believe that romantic love can be long lasting. In addition, securely attached
adults were less cynical about love in general, had longer lasting relationships, and
were less likely to divorce than either avoidant or anxious-ambivalent adults.
Other researchers have continued to extend the research on attachment and
adult romantic relationships. Steven Rholes and colleagues, for example, tested the
idea that attachment style is related to the type of information people seek or avoid
regarding their relationship and romantic partner (Rholes, Simpson, Tran, Martin,
& Friedman, 2007). The researchers predicted that avoidant individuals would not
seek out additional information about their partner’s intimate feelings and dreams,
whereas anxious individuals would express a strong desire to gain more informa-
tion about their romantic partner. Avoidant individuals typically strive to maintain
emotional independence and therefore do not want any information that could
increase closeness. Closeness subverts their goal of independence. Conversely,
anxious individuals tend to be chronically worried about the state of their relation-
ship and want to strengthen emotional bonds by seeking out as much information
about their partner’s most intimate feelings as possible.
To test their predictions, Rholes and colleagues recruited couples who had
been dating for a while and had them come in to a psychology lab to complete
mea sures of attachment and information seeking. Attachment style was measured
using a standard questionnaire containing self-report items about how anxious or
avoidant the person feels within their romantic relationship. Information seeking
was mea sured using a clever (and bogus) computerized task whereby each par-
ticipant independently completed several items about their relationship including
each partner’s intimate feelings and goals for the future. Participants were told that
the computer would then generate a profile of their relationship that both dating
partners could view at the end of the study. The researchers then were able to
measure how much of the information provided by the relationship profile each
partner read about the other. In accord with their predictions, and attachment the-
ory more generally, the avoidant individuals showed less interest in reading infor-
mation about their partner contained in the relationship profile, whereas anxious
individuals sought more information about their partner’s intimacy-related issues
and goals for the future.
Jealousy occurs when we feel threatened by the perceived loss of a close
partner, usually romantic. Jealousy can often be based in reality—that is, there may
be a legitimate threat of loss. However, some people are hypersensitive to threat-
ened loss of a partner and feel jealous even when there is little or no real basis for
it. Psychologists call this “pathological jealousy.” A recent study investigated the