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Abstract
Attachment researchers have proposed that the attachment, caregiving, and sexual behavioral systems are interrelated in adult love relationships (Mikulincer & Shaver, Citation2007). This study examined whether aspects of partners’ caregiving (proximity, sensitivity, control, compulsive caregiving) mediated the association between their attachment insecurities (anxiety and avoidance) and each other's sexual satisfaction in two samples of committed couples (Study 1: 126 cohabiting or married couples from the general community; Study 2: 55 clinically distressed couples). Partners completed the Experiences in Close Relationships measure (Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, Citation1998), the Caregiving Questionnaire (Kunce & Shaver, Citation1994), and the Global Measure of Sexual Satisfaction (Lawrance & Byers, Citation1998). Path analyses based on the actor-partner interdependence model (APIM) revealed that caregiving proximity mediated the association between low attachment avoidance and partners’ sexual satisfaction in distressed and nondistressed couples. Sensitivity mediated this association in nondistressed couples only. Control mediated the association between men's insecurities (attachment-related avoidance and anxiety) and their partners’ low sexual satisfaction in nondistressed couples. Attachment anxiety predicted compulsive caregiving, but this caregiving dimension was not a significant mediator. These results are discussed in light of attachment theory and their implications for treating distressed couples.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by a research grant to Marie-France Lafontaine (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada) and a postdoctoral fellowship to Katherine Péloquin (Fonds québécois de recherche sur la société et la culture). We thank graduate students at the University of Ottawa's Couple Research lab for data collection.
Notes
Note. N = 126 couples; M = men; W = women.
a A square root transformation was performed for proximity and sexual satisfaction due to significant negative skew; untransformed means and standard deviations are presented here.
*p < .05. **p < .01.
Note. N = 55 couples; M = men; W = women.
*p < .05. **p < .01.
Note. CI = Confidence interval; M = men; W = women.