The impact of adult attachment style on organizational commitment and adult attachment in the workplace

a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: Adult attachment styles Organizational commitment Adult attachment in the workplace AAI Adult attachment style has only recently been considered as having a role in explaining work behavior. The present research aimed to explore the impact of adult attachment style, assessed by the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), on organizational commitment (OC) and on adult attachment in the workplace (AAW). We hypothesized that a secure attachment style would be positively related to affective and normative commitment, while preoccupied and avoidant styles would be negatively related to affective commitment; we also hypothesized that there would be a correspondence between the AAI categories and the AAW dimensions. Using the AAI categories as group variable, analysis of average OC and AAW scores confirmed the hypotheses. Secure workers had a higher mean score for affective commitment than avoidant and preoccupied workers; normative commitment was higher in avoidant than in secure and preoccupied workers; continuance commitment was higher in preoccupied than in secure and avoidant workers. Moreover, AAI categories converged with AAW dimensions: secure workers had higher secure AAW scores than avoidant and preoccupied workers; avoidant workers had higher avoidant AAW scores than secure and preoccupied workers; preoccupied workers had higher preoccupied AAW scores than secure and avoidant workers. Research on the personality determinants of organizational behavior and attitudes as organizational commitment, has a long history traits and individual differences are considered to be influencing factors with respect to the variables most closely related to the organization. However, the impact of individual factors on organizational behavior is still a source of debate among researchers. For instance, in their influential article, Davis-Blake and Pfeffer (1989) deemed personality effects on organizational behavior to be more illusory than real, concluding that " dispositions are likely to have only limited effects on attitudes and behavior inside organizations " (p. 396). On the other hand, a close relationship has been found between personality traits and different work behaviors (e. In the last 15 years, adult attachment style has been considered to play a primary role in work behavior, and attachment theory has been shown to account for variance in organizational variables above that of other personality traits (Neustadt, Chamorro-Premuzic, & Furnham, 2011; Richards & Schat, 2011). In fact, empirical data suggest that attachment style (secure, preoccupied, or avoidant), being relatively stable from childhood to adulthood theory suggests that individuals with …