Research shows a strong link between adult attachment and mental and physical health, but little is known about the mechanisms that underlie these relationships. The present study examined self-compassion and mattering, two constructs from positive psychology literature, as potential mediators. Using survey data from a sample of 208 college students, relationships among attachment, self-compass...

We study the influence of the seed in random trees grown according to the uniform attachment model, also known as uniform random recursive trees. We show that different seeds lead to different distributions of limiting trees from a total variation point of view. To do this, we construct statistics that measure, in a certain well-defined sense, global “balancedness” properties of such trees. Our...

This study tested whether adolescents' attachment style is related to friendship interactions and perceptions of friendship quality. Attachment pairings were contrasted to examine whether dyad members' security of attachment or their models of others was more related to friendship. A total of 44 pairs of same-sex adolescent friends were videotaped as they engaged in an intimate conversation. Pa...

There has been little research concerning the association between “place meanings” and “place attachment.” An understanding of the association between these constructs is important because they do not stand alone, but rather, complement one another. We documented the meanings ascribed to a national forest in California by five groups of respondents that varied in their mode and attachment inten...

BACKGROUND Obesity is a parallel problem in canine and human populations. We describe health perceptions and levels of companion animal attachment in a cohort of dog owners. METHODS As part of a larger trial examining the impact of veterinary counseling on activity levels of dog owners and their pets, owners presenting to a veterinary referral center were asked to self-report perceived levels...

This paper describes a mentalization-based model of the development of borderline personality disorder (BPD). The model takes into account constitutional vulnerability and is rooted in attachment theory and its elaboration by contemporary developmental psychologists. The model suggests that disruption of the attachment relationship early in development in combination with later traumatic experi...

Theory and research on adult attachment style emphasize the crucial role that the sense of attachment security plays in the formation and maintenance of couple relationships. In the present article, we review studies that have examined the contribution of adult attachment style to relational cognitions, emotions, and behaviors as well as to the formation, quality, and stability of dating and ma...

In this article, we investigate marital functioning from an attachment theory perspective. We review empirical evidence showing that, in nondistressed marriages, spouses, as attachment figures, provide each other with a subjective sense of felt security, regulate each other’s affective and physiological states, and facilitate each other’s functioning outside the relationship, especially with re...

It has been proposed that insecure attachment can have adverse effects on the course of psychosis once symptoms have emerged. There is longitudinal evidence that increased insecure attachment is associated with increased severity of psychotic symptoms. The present study examined whether in the flow of daily life attachment insecurity fluctuates, whether elevated stress precedes the occurrence o...