Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. In intimate relationships, which are characterized by emotional interdependence, partners act as attachment figures which serve emotion regulation functions. The experience of emotions as well as the strategies that partners use to regulate them and to respond to relational experiences, especially during stressful periods, differ greatly according to their attachment orientation.
Inertia has been related to maladaptive emotion regulation strategies, like suppression and rumination, preferentially used by highly anxious and avoidant individuals.
The aim of this study is to examine associations between attachment orientations and reports on the experience of positive and negative affect, and their dynamics in daily life across the transition to parenthood.
Longitudinal data from a sample of mixed-gender couples collected across the transition to parenthood was analyzed. We predicted that individuals with a more insecure attachment would report more negative and less positive affect, and that their emotional experience would be more resistant to change over time.
We explored effects when participants reported feeling stressed. The data suggested that attachment anxiety was associated with less positive and more negative affect and that attachment avoidance was associated with more positive affect. Anxious individuals showed lower emotional inertia and not higher as we expected. Reported stress for anxious and avoidant individuals was significantly associated with more negative but not less positive affect.
