Romantic attachment and support adequacy in new mothers

ABSTRACT

In the present research, we examined whether attachment anxiety and avoidance in support recipients were related to the extent to which social support received from a romantic partner matched the actual needs of the recipient. Two-hundred and forty-five first-time mothers, currently involved in romantic relationships, participated in study 1, in which perceptions of support were appraised over the previous month using self-reports. In study 2, we sought to replicate these findings using an experience sampling method to examine the association between attachment and momentary support perceptions in the daily life of mothers with babies (N = 40). Results indicated that high levels of attachment avoidance or anxiety in mothers were associated with negative appraisals of support matching. Receiving support which matched the needs of the mother (i.e., adequate support) was beneficial to mood, but not constructive to relationship satisfaction or perceptions of maternal efficacy.

Keywords:

• Attachment
• social support
• romantic couples
• transition to parenthood
• experience sampling
• depression

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics statement

Authors confirm that this article adheres to ethical guidelines specified in the APA Code of Conduct as well as the authors’ national ethics guidelines. This study was approved by The University of Manchester Ethics Committee (Psychology and Mental Health Division Panel), Ref: 2017-0136-544, Ref: 2017-0136-544.

Author contribution

All four authors were involved with the data analysis and report writing. The lead author collected the data. Note that this study was not preregistered.

Transparency statement

The research datasets analysis during the current study are available from https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/by6sgy8rcb

Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/zh4d8dk282/1.

Open scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data and Open Materials through Open Practices Disclosure. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/zh4d8dk282/1 and https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/pb85s4tv23/1.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.

Notes on contributors

Saul Mcleod

Saul Mcleod completed a doctorate in psychology at the University of Manchester examining the relationship between romantic attachment and social support.

Katherine Berry

Kather Berry is a health service researcher and clinical psychologist specializing in the field of attachment and psychosis.

Peter Taylor

Peter Taylor is a health service researcher and clinical psychologist specializing in the field of self-harm and suicidal behavior.

Alison Wearden

Alison Wearden is a health service researcher and clinical psychologist specializing in the field of chronic illness.