Attachment Style and Gender as Predictors of Relational Repair Among the Remarried Rationale for the Study

Abstract

This study examined the construct of relational repair among remarried persons with an instrument developed to measure repair strategies used by the remarried. It utilized accommodation theory and its connection to commitment to form hypotheses, which predicted connections between the independent variables of attachment style and gender and the dependent variables of relational repair strategies and types of commitment. Multivariate analysis of variance found evidence for an attachment style explanation for the use of relational repair items but did not find the predicted gender connection. There was also a limited connection between attachment style and commitment but none between gender and commitment. Implications for future research involving direct comparisons between once-married and remarried persons and between persons remarried more than once were discussed.