Attachment Analysis

The very nature of an individual who is avoidantly attached suggests that they would experience discomfort when self-disclosing. Self-disclosure is an intimate act that involves sharing personal information with another person. It is shown that an avoidant attachment style would cause individuals to steer clear of intimacy generating behaviors that can leave them vulnerable or dependent, as a self-report study revealed negative correlations between comfort with self-disclosure and avoidant attachment style in college freshmen (Wei et al., 2005). This can be supported by the reactions avoidantly attached individuals during self-disclosure (Roisman et al., 2004). During the administration of the Adult Attachment Interview participants discuss …show more content…
Talking to another person about private information likely has little appeal to someone high in avoidant attachment. An avoidant attachment style and the accompanying negative working models of others makes sharing one’s emotions and thoughts with another person risky and unappealing (Levi-Belz et al., 2013). In a study utilizing 116 undergraduate students, results showed that higher levels of attachment avoidance were related to lower levels of emotional-disclosure (Garrison et al., 2014). These reports represent both general tendencies to and daily reports of emotional-disclose. These self-report measures may give insight into their personal reluctance to engage emotional disclosure. Daily reports of emotional disclosure over the week were also significantly negatively correlated with attachment avoidance, however, this effect size was smaller than that of the general reports. This shows that despite a general desire to abstain from emotional disclosure, in day to day life individuals may still engage in alternative coping strategies to manage distress. Talking about issues in more detail with another person may also arouse more unwanted emotions about the distressing subject on part of the avoidantly attached individual. The conversations of an avoidantly attached individual tend to be devoid of excess information and regarding less intimate subject matter (Levi-Belz et al., 2013). Individuals with attachment avoidance may still engage in some forms of self-disclosure with friends but this is likely a superficial and inauthentic act. For example, an avoidantly attached individual may complain to a friend about how her romantic partner has been increasingly distant lately and it has caused a great annoyance, but she may neglect to share how her romantic partner’s distance has caused her to feel insecure in her relationship and is having doubts or break-up anxiety. This

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