Chapter 12.PDF

Chapter 12 Socioemotional and Vocational Development in Young Adulthood Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, you should be able to: 12.1 Using the conceptual framework of attachment theory, analyze interpersonal relationships of young adults, identify their chal-...

Chapter 12 Socioemotional and Vocational Development in Young Adulthood Learning Objectives After reading this chapter, you should be able to: 12.1 Using the conceptual framework of attachment theory, analyze interpersonal relationships of young adults, identify their chal- lenges, and suggest approaches for resolution/improvement. 12.2 Determine level of compatibility between an individual’s personal characteristics and the demands of a chosen career and suggest effective approaches to enhance the process of career development. Katie and Phil were in love. Their families lived in the same small, middle-class com- munity. They had known each other since middle school, but they didn’t start dating until one summer during college. As they got to know each other better, Phil really appreciated Katie’s practical, good-hearted ways, and Katie loved Phil’s gregarious- ness, sense of humor, and devotion to his family, especially to his spirited nieces and nephews. They planned a future together. Katie worked in a retirement community during her college summers, and she treasured the time she spent with her grand- mother and with Phil’s irascible grandfather, who lived to 101. When she completed a Bachelor’s in Nursing, she went straight to her dream job in a facility for the infirm elderly. She loved the work, and Phil shared her happiness in finding a satisfying career. But Katie and Phil both knew that her career choice would not make them wealthy. They hoped that Phil’s might. Phil saw himself following in his older broth- er’s footsteps. With a finance degree from a good university (his mom’s employment there gave him and his siblings tuition waivers), he took a corporate position, aspir- ing to climb the ladder to executive success. After college, Katie and Phil each lived with their parents to save for a wedding and their own home. But one year into his finance career, Phil was sure that he was headed down the wrong path. He hated his job. He needed to be active and interactive, to be problem solving in a more direct, hands-on way. So he quit. His parents blanched, but they kept supporting him as he thought through his next steps, and they cautiously postponed plans for their retire- ment. Despite Phil’s stubborn insistence that this was the best way for him to move forward, Katie remained committed to him and to their relationship, although they both began to feel the strain as one year of searching for a better career stretched into two. Finally, after really listening to Phil explain what he felt he needed, Katie’s dad came up with an idea. He worked for the electric company, and one of the jobs 461 462 Chapter 12 available was line crew manager. It was complicated work that required on-the- ground, rapid problem solving, organizational skills, computer savvy, and a capacity to stay focused and calm and to help crew members do the same, often in emergency situations. Phil was intrigued, and with a good word from Katie’s dad, he landed the job. He knew it wouldn’t make him wealthy like his brother, but the fit was good, and Katie and Phil moved forward with more modest life plans than they had origi- nally mapped out. What is required for a happy, well-adjusted adult life? For Sigmund Freud, both love and work are powerful methods by which we “strive to gain happiness and keep suffering away” (Freud, 1930/1989, p. 732). Love, he felt, might bring us closer to the goal of happiness than anything else we do. The disadvantage of love, of course, is that “we are never so defenseless... never so helplessly unhappy as when we have lost our loved object or its love” (p. 733). Work, from Freud’s per- spective, not only helps justify our existence in society, providing the worker with a sense of security within their social network, but it also can be a source of special satisfaction if it is “freely chosen—if, that is... it makes possible the use of existing inclinations” (p. 732). For Erikson (e.g., 1950/1963), both intimacy (love) and generativity (work) are arenas for expressing and developing the self, dominating the concerns of adults in their young and middle years. True intimacy and generativity require achieving an adult identity and are part of its further enrichment and evolution. “Intimacy is a qual- ity of interpersonal relating through which partners share personal thoughts, feelings, and other important aspects of themselves with each other” (McAdams, 2000, p. 118). True intimacy is marked by openness, affection, and trust. Generativity is a motive or need that can be filled through one’s vocation or avocations, through child rear- ing, or through community service. It includes productivity and creativity (Erikson, 1950/1963). Generativity is also a trait that people can be described as having when they are contributing members of society. Generative people tend to have prosocial motives, aiming to engage in behaviors that benefit future generations (McAdams & Guo, 2015). For most adults, achieving generativity is central to their belief in the meaningfulness of their lives. Erikson considered young adults to be especially driven by needs for intimacy, middle adults by needs for generativity. Modern research sug- gests that both are powerful influences on behavior throughout adulthood, although intimacy needs may predominate early and generativity needs later. More recent conceptions of how adults achieve happiness, mental health or “well- ness” are quite consistent with the importance that Freud and Erikson placed on love and work. Close relationships with lovers, friends, and family, as well as the oppor- tunity to make productive use of one’s time and talents, figure prominently in nearly all modern theorizing about what people need to be happy and well-adjusted (see Chapter 14; Ryan & Deci, 2017). From a developmental perspective, then, the period of young adulthood should be a time when identity issues are resolved sufficiently to allow a person to make significant progress on two major tasks: The first is establish- ing and strengthening bonds with people who will accompany him on his life journey, and the second is becoming a productive worker. Love 12.1 Using the conceptual framework of attachment theory, analyze interper- sonal relationships of young adults, identify their challenges, and suggest approaches for resolution/improvement. Making connections with others in adulthood—establishing intimacy with a mate, making friends, reworking family ties—has been studied from many perspectives. One promising developmental approach examines the impact of attachment style, which is assumed to have its roots in infancy and childhood, on the formation and functioning of adult relationships.  Socioemotional and Vocational Development in Young Adulthood 463 Adult Attachment Theory Attachment theory has enjoyed a prominent place in the child development literature since the groundbreaking work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth (see Chapter 4). Following an explosion of studies on childhood attachment, researchers began to train their sights on attachment theorists’ suggestion that early bonds with caregivers could have a bearing on relationship building throughout the life span. Today, attachment theory provides a useful framework for conceptualizing adult intimacy. The abun- dance of research in this area makes it the most empirically grounded theory available for explaining the formation and nature of close interpersonal relationships through- out adulthood (Zeifman & Hazan, 2016). As we saw in Chapter 4, attachments are a special kind of social bond. According to Bowlby (1969/1982), the attachment between infant and caregiver serves survival needs, and has four defining features: distress at separation, which ensures proximity to the caregiver, who is a safe haven in case of threat, and who acts as a secure base for exploration. The attachment figure, then, is a preferred provider of emotional warmth and affect regulation. How the attachment process unfolds is a function of the caregiving relation- ship. Depending on the caregiver’s sensitivity and responsiveness, an infant becomes securely or insecurely attached to that caregiver. To the extent possible, he adapts his behavior to the caregiver’s style to get his needs met, and he begins to internalize a working model of how relationships operate. Despite diminishing demands for physical caretaking as individuals age, adults continue to need the emotional and practical support of significant others. As we have noted, Erikson identified the achievement of intimacy as the central task of early adult- hood. In his view, even though adults are much more independent than children, they still need to establish and maintain intimate connections to people who will provide them with love and care. Although you may never have thought of your adult rela- tionships with significant others, including your bonds to your parents, as attach- ment relationships, many researchers believe that they are precisely that. Let us look more closely at the various manifestations of attachments in adulthood and consider a framework for organizing the existing research. Research Traditions in Adult Attachment Attachment theory has provided a framework for understanding many kinds of indi- vidual differences in adults’ behavior, from how they react to bereavement and loss (Schenck, Eberle, & Rings, 2016), to their responses to stress in general (Simpson & Rholes, 2012), to their choices of religious practices (Granqvist & Kirkpatrick, 2016), to their manner of social information processing (Dykas & Cassidy, 2011). Among helping professionals, attachment theory has been used to explain conflict resolution in interpersonal relationships (Rholes, Kohn, & Simpson, 2014), family dysfunction (Wiebe & Johnson, 2016), and psychopathology (Stovall-McClough & Dozier, 2016), and it provides a basis for therapeutic interventions (Berlin, Zeanah, & Lieberman, 2016; Josephs, 2018). Our focus here is on two major research traditions (Crowell, Fraley, & Roisman, 2016; Simpson & Rholes, 1998). First, there is a body of work that examines the out- comes of a person’s attachment to his primary caregiver in infancy, once the person becomes an adult. This has been referred to as the “nuclear family tradition.” Inves- tigations center on whether our earliest attachments to primary caregivers endure throughout life, how they might affect the quality of caregiving we give to our chil- dren, and whether parents in any sense “pass on” their own attachment statuses to their children. A parallel line of research, sometimes called the “peer/romantic partner tradition,” focuses on the peer attachments of adults. In this work, investigators try to answer questions about how early attachments impact the quality of romantic and friendship relationships in adulthood, and conversely, how adult relationships might influence changes in attachment statuses. 464 Chapter 12 The two bodies of work are grounded in attachment theory, but they have often used different methods and measurement techniques, sometimes even coming up with their own terminology, as you will see. As a result, it is not always easy to see how the findings from one tradition cohere with those from the other. Both research tradi- tions generally support the notion that attachment patterns affect how adults behave, from caring for children to interacting with friends and romantic partners. After the first two decades of research on attachment in adults, Bartholomew and Shaver (1998) remarked: When we step back from the details of specific measures and measure-specific find- ings, the results produced by attachment researchers are all compatible with the pos- sibility that various forms of adult attachment arise from a continuous but branching tree of attachment experiences, beginning in infancy and developing throughout the life course. (p. 42) The more recent decades of research have only served to strengthen that conclusion. We will continue our discussion of adult attachment by focusing on each approach in turn. First, we will consider how the nuclear family tradition contributes to our under- standing of adult caregiving. Then we will present an overview of significant contribu- tions from the peer/romantic partner tradition. The Nuclear Family Tradition: The Past as Prologue Does the nature of your attachment to your caregiver predict your behavior in adult- hood, influencing the quality of attachment you will form with your own children? This is the intriguing question that is at the heart of the nuclear family line of research. We briefly examined this issue in Chapter 4. Now we’ll take a closer look. You may recall that the primary instrument used to measure the attachment repre- sentations of adults vis-à-vis their early caregivers is the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) developed by Main and Goldwyn (1984; see Hesse, 2016). It is composed of a series of 18 open-ended questions with follow-up prompts that are transcribed verba- tim by a trained interviewer. Table 12.1 provides a sampling of some of the questions in the protocol. The questions concern memories of relationships with mother and father; recollections of stressful events such as separations, loss, harsh discipline, or abuse; interpretations of parental behaviors; and evaluation of the effects of these early events on the interviewee’s later development. Follow-up prompts to interviewee’s answers are critical, requesting more detail and/or explanation, such as “Why did you describe your father as ‘strict’?” “Can you give me an example of a disciplinary episode you recall?” Main and her colleagues hypothesized that the primary task for the interviewee is to resurrect emotionally loaded memories of early childhood experiences while simul- taneously presenting them in a coherent fashion to an interviewer. Because the ques- tions deal with very complicated, personal, and often intense issues in a person’s early history, they may never have been articulated by the individual prior to this interview experience. The rapidity of questioning, combined with the nature of the items and the interview setting, are thought to elicit material often heretofore unconscious, yet TABLE 12.1 Sample Questions from the Adult Attachment Interview Protocol 1. To begin with, could you just help me to get a little bit oriented to your family—for example, who was in your immediate family, and where you lived? 2. Now I’d like you to try to describe your relationship with your parents as a young child, starting as far back as you can remember. 5. To which parent did you feel closer, and why? 7. Could you describe your first separation from your parents? 11. Why do you think your parents behaved as they did during your childhood? SOURCE: Based on Hesse, E. (2016). The Adult Attachment Interview. Protocol method of analysis, and selected empirical studies: 1985-2015. In J. Cassidy & P. R. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications (3rd ed., pp. 5).  Socioemotional and Vocational Development in Young Adulthood 465 highly descriptive of the adult’s state of mind regarding early attachments to primary caregivers. The assumption is that by adulthood, security has become a characteristic of the individual. Representations of different relationships—like relationships with mother versus father—tend to coalesce, and a single working model of attachment can be tapped (Hesse, 2016). Interviews are scored according to Grice’s (1975) criteria for coherent discourse: truthfulness as supported by evidence, succinctness, relevance to the topic, clarity, and organization of responses. Additional scoring criteria include the coder’s assessment of the interviewee’s early attachment quality as well as an assessment of the language used in the interview (e.g., angry, passive, derogating). Four qualitatively different classifications, or attachment styles, are then assigned to adults based on their ver- batim transcripts. These are secure or insecure (which includes three subcategories: dismissing, preoccupied, and unresolved) categories. Different classifications of inse- curity are thought to reflect the different strategies and rules of information processing that the person has developed to manage the anxiety of early relationship failure, loss, or trauma. Let us examine each of these categories in turn. Autonomous (secure) adults provide a transcript that is coherent and collabora- tive. They answer questions with enough detail to provide sufficient evidence with- out giving excessive information. For example, incidents of caregiver insensitivity are described matter-of-factly, without embellishment or defensiveness. Secure adults also demonstrate the ability to integrate and monitor their thinking, summarize answers, and return the conversation to the interviewer. They seem to be less egocentric in their presentation than insecure individuals, and they demonstrate good perspective taking skills. Secure individuals acknowledge the importance of attachment-related experi- ences in their development. Their memories of the parenting they received match up with the specific instances they present to the interviewer as illustrations. The emo- tions they express, both verbally and facially, are consistent with the content of their remarks (Crowell et al., 2016). Can adults be classified as secure if they have had less than favorable experi- ences as a child? Some individuals do come from circumstances of early adversity but describe their painful backgrounds truthfully and believably, while acknowledg- ing the stressors their own parents faced. This ability to reflect on a difficult past realistically, yet with a certain level of generosity towards parents, results in a spe- cial classification called earned secure. Such adults appear to have come to terms with less than optimal early experiences, quite possibly with the help of a secure spouse or partner. Individuals in both secure categories typically have children who are securely attached to them (see Chapter 4 for a detailed discussion of children’s attachment categories). Dismissing (insecure) individuals provide transcripts that are characterized by markedly low levels of detail and coherence. They are likely to describe parents as very positive or idealized; however, they do not support their evaluations with any specific evidence. Whatever details these dismissing respondents offer may actually contradict their generally favorable presentation of parental behavior. They tend to minimize or avoid discussion of attachment-related issues and downplay the impor- tance of close relationships. When discussing nonemotional topics, dismissing indi- viduals generate coherent and comprehensive records and can talk at some length. Responses to attachment themes, in contrast, lack elaboration. Failure to remember is often cited as a reason for the impoverished answers. Adults classified as dismissing tend to have children who are in the avoidant attachment category. The dismissing style has been linked to early experiences of rejection or other trauma and the development of repressive personality styles. Do these individuals simply hide their distress, or have they managed to actually suppress their attachment needs? Some evidence using an information processing approach indicates that these individuals, over time, function with the goal of avoiding emotional thoughts and other reminders of unpleasant emotional experiences, such as parental unavailability. This motivated avoidance may lead to less cognitive elaboration of attachment themes and a reduction of behaviors that would encourage intimacy, such as sharing intimate conversation, mutual gazing, cuddling, and so on. 466 Chapter 12 However, it is unlikely that the system has been deactivated completely. Dozier and Kobak (1992) provide interesting evidence that dismissing individuals do react strongly to emotional issues. These researchers interviewed college students using the AAI while measuring their rates of skin conductance. Dismissing subjects, although outwardly appearing unfazed during questioning, had significantly elevated levels of skin conductance, as compared to baseline levels, when asked questions about the emotional availability of their parents and the effects of early attachments on their self- development. Roisman et al. (2004) replicated these results cross-culturally, studying European Americans, Chinese Americans, and Chinese nationals who were students at a midwestern American university. Many more recent studies, done with a range of physiological measures, consis- tently support the conclusion that dismissing individuals have strong reactions in emotional situations (see reviews by Gander & Buchheim, 2015; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2016). During the AAI, they seem to effortfully engage in diversionary tactics, called “deactivating” or “minimizing” strategies, to deal with the anxiety generated by the topics. Such strategies do not suppress strong physiological reactions, but they do seem to impede a dismissing person’s ability to understand and recall his own and others’ emotions (Stevens, 2014). In the AAI interview, dismissing people have trouble remembering childhood experiences, and they often provide rather general descriptions of their parents. In other contexts, their deactivating strategies lead to odd “disconnects” between their feelings and behavior. For example, in a study of couples’ conversations, when secure individuals showed physiological signs of dis- tress (increased skin conductance), they also expressed emotions to their partners that were consistent with distress, such as anger or hurt. But dismissing individuals were actually more likely to express positive feelings to their partners when their physio- logical reactions signaled that they were feeling distressed (Seedall & Wampler, 2012). Individuals in a third group, classified as preoccupied (insecure), typically vio- late the rule of collaboration on the AAI interview. These individuals provide very long, incoherent, egocentric responses that shift from topic to topic. They perform in ways that suggest they are overwhelmed by the emotional memories elicited by the interview questions and are sidetracked from the task of responding succinctly. Such speakers often sound angry, sad, or fearful, as if they have never resolved the painful problems of their childhood. Parents may be remembered as intrusive or egocen- tric. Preoccupied individuals’ transcripts paint a picture of substantial enmesh- ment or preoccupation with parents, registered by angry, accusatory language or by conflicted descriptions that connote ambivalence and confusion about early rela- tionships. This feature of the preoccupied attachment style has been referred to as “hyperactivating,” and there is emerging evidence that individuals with hyperacti- vating responses to the AAI are more likely than others to show heart rate increases in situations that arouse the attachment system (Roisman, 2007). Both their facial expressions and their self-reported emotions during the AAI are often inconsistent with the childhood memories they describe. For example, distressed facial expres- sion might be combined with their description of a positive experience (Roisman et al., 2004). Linguistic features of their transcripts include run-on sentences, idiosyn- cratic uses of words, and juxtaposition of past and present tense, as though early problems continue to persist in the present. The children of preoccupied adults often have anxious-ambivalent attachments. Individuals in the fourth category, called unresolved (insecure), produce tran- scripts characterized by marked lapses in logical thinking, particularly when these individuals discuss loss or other traumatic memories. One example of a lapse in rea- soning might be an interviewee’s mention of a deceased parent as still living. Hesse and Main (1999b) have suggested that these abrupt shifts may be related to temporary changes in consciousness, possibly due to the arousal of unintegrated fear. Individuals in this category may also receive a secondary classification of dismissing or preoccu- pied. The children of unresolved individuals show a higher frequency of disorganized attachment patterns than other children. A fifth category, cannot classify, is used when protocols do not meet the criteria for other categories. Only a very small number of cases fall into this classification. Data  Socioemotional and Vocational Development in Young Adulthood 467 on AAI classifications and psychopathology demonstrate that psychiatric disorders are clearly associated with insecure status and that, in particular, unresolved status is the clearest predictor of emotional disturbance (Lyons-Ruth & Jacobvitz, 2016; Stovall- McClough & Dozier, 2016). Most longitudinal studies have found that a person’s attachment behavior in infancy, as measured by the strange situation test, predicts whether he will be scored as secure or insecure on the AAI as an adolescent or an adult (Hesse, 2016). As we saw in Chapter 4, however, a child’s attachment status can become more or less secure if he has either positive or negative experiences with close relationships after the infant–toddler period. People can either “earn” security, as we have already noted, by experiencing later supportive relationships or can develop insecure representations of attachment. Adults who were secure as children can later demonstrate insecure states of mind because of intervening, highly stressful events such as parental loss, divorce, abuse, illness, or psychiatric disorder. Such findings suggest that deviations from the predicted pathway are most likely explained by lawful rather than random disconti- nuity (Crowell et al., 2016), although more longitudinal studies with larger numbers of participants are needed. IN SEARCH OF THE WORKING MODEL Perhaps you are wondering if the attachment representation categories that are derived from adults’ AAI performances could simply be measures of general linguistic style. If so, then interviews would have no particular relevance to attachment, and their predictive value for children’s attachment characteristics might be coincidental. Crowell et al. (1996) investigated whether the different linguistic features used to make AAI classifications also characterize individuals on other measures of discourse. Using the Employment Experience Interview, he examined a group of adults who had been assigned AAI classifications. The Employment Experience Interview had the same structure as the AAI and was coded using the same criteria. Note that the only dif- ference between the two was in the nature of the questions: one was about job skills and the other early attachment relationships. Results showed differences among the transcripts (e.g., vague vs. clear discourse). However, the interesting finding was that respondents’ classifications were different on each measure. In other words, an adult who might be judged “secure” on the employment interview could be “insecure” on the AAI. The researchers concluded that there is something unique about the attach- ment questions. They appear to provide a window into a person’s state of mind con- cerning interpersonal representations. The power of attachment theory rests on the concept of the inner working model. The AAI was designed to tap an adult’s representation of attachments to primary caregivers. The assumption is that the individual’s narrative reflects partly unconscious representations. Results are not considered to be a direct mea- sure of an individual’s attachment to any one person, but rather are an indica- tor of the individual’s state of mind regarding attachment-related issues. Like an algorithm for our close interpersonal associations, the working model is thought to provide rules for processing information about relationships and for behaving in relationships. Researchers agree that the working model of relationships that one has as an adult cannot simply be a carbon copy of the one that was formed with the primary caregiver in infancy. It is a cognitive structure or schema (often now described as a prototype) that must evolve with time and experience, becoming more elaborate, incorporating new elements into the original version in dynamic, qualitatively transformed ways. Like all cognitive schemas, our working models of relationships help us understand, predict, and act on information that is only fragmentary. The obvious advantage is that they allow us to process information and to respond quickly. The downside is that we may fail to accommodate real differences in present relationships, and we may behave in these relationships in ways that are adapted to quite different circumstances (Breth- erton & Munholland, 2016). For example, consider Sheila, whose mother was depressed and dependent. As a youngster, Sheila felt that her mother’s needs always came before her own. Because 468 Chapter 12 even the simplest task was a chore for her mother, Sheila began taking on the care of the household and her younger siblings in order to spare her mother. Sheila grew increasingly competent as a caretaker, which, in turn, caused her mother to depend on her even more. As a young adult, Sheila has difficulty getting close to people. She bristles when any friend or romantic partner, in an attempt to get close to her emotion- ally, talks about a personal problem. She quickly changes the subject of conversation. Sheila’s relationships in adulthood appear to be affected by the legacy of her earlier attachments. She exaggerates other people’s reliance on her and fears she will be over- come by their needs, despite any real evidence for this. As we have seen, adults’ attachment representations predict the quality of their attachments to their children (see Chapter 4). This link suggests that attach- ment representation is a determinant of parental caregiving behavior. Does attach- ment representation also affect the way that adults interact with other adults? If the working model, in fact, functions like an algorithm for close relationships, indi- vidual differences in attachment representations should also affect adults’ ability to relate to others in romantic and friendship relationships. This is the subject of our next section. The Peer/Romantic Relationship Tradition Any reader of romance novels can testify that the topic of adult love relationships has considerable appeal. In the research community as well, quite a bit of time and energy has been devoted to understanding the formation and development of adult pair-bonds. Researchers have examined specific issues such as mate selection, rela- tionship satisfaction, conflict resolution, relationship dissolution, and so on, and have produced a wealth of findings in each of these areas. Studies have also been done that show consistent individual differences in adults’ approaches to romantic relationships, sometimes called “love styles” (Lee, 1973). Similarly, there are theories about the elements of love, such as Sternberg’s (1986) passion, intimacy, and com- mitment, and the ways they function in relationship formation. Passion refers to erotic attraction or feelings of being in love. Intimacy includes elements of love that promote connection and closeness, whereas commitment refers to making a decision to sustain a relationship with a loved one. We will discuss these elements further in the next chapter. An early investigation by Shaver and Hazan (1988) contributed significantly to the growing body of knowledge on adult relationships by anchoring the fledgling field within the conceptual framework of attachment theory. These researchers tried to integrate the disparate threads of data into a comprehensive theory of relationships. Today, research conceptualizing adult pair-bonds as attachments represents the sec- ond influential offshoot of attachment theory. FEATURES OF ADULT PAIR-BONDS Do adult pair-bonds qualify as bona fide attachment relationships? Although there are some dissenting opinions (e.g., McAdams, 2000), many researchers answer yes. Bowlby (1969/1982) defined a behavioral system as a set of behaviors that serve the same function or goal. Human beings are equipped with multiple behavioral systems, meeting multiple goals, which interact in coordinated ways. The attachment system is one of these. In early childhood, attachment behavior—which includes proximity maintenance, separation distress, and treatment of the caregiver as both a safe haven and a secure base—is the most important behavioral system because it serves the ulti- mate goal of survival. When security is threatened, the attachment system is triggered, and proximity-seeking behaviors increase. But when security is felt, other behavioral systems, such as exploration, can be activated. In adulthood, as in childhood, particular behavioral systems are organized to meet specific needs. Attachment (based on the need for felt security) is just one of the adult behavioral systems serving psychosocial needs, which also include care- giving, sexual mating, and exploration. Because of their structure and function,  Socioemotional and Vocational Development in Young Adulthood 469 pair-bonds in adults provide an effective way to integrate three of the basic systems: caregiving, attachment (felt security), and sexual mating. The support provided by the secure base of an attachment relationship enhances exploration in adults, just as it does in children (Feeney & Woodhouse, 2016; Jakubiak & Feeney, 2016). Zeif- man and Hazan (2016) argue that “infant-caregiver and adult romantic relation- ships share unique psychological properties... and serve similar functions from an evolutionary standpoint... (They) confer benefits that are distinct from those associated with other relationships” (p. 416). Infant–caregiver bonds and adult pair- bonds are notably similar in the kinds of physical contact they involve, such as mutual gazing, kissing, cuddling, and so on, and in the goals they serve (support, emotional closeness, etc.). Adult attachments, however, do differ from childhood attachments in the following three ways. First, the attachments adults have with adults are structured more symmetrically than are parent–child bonds. Both part- ners mutually provide and receive caregiving, whereas the parent is the unilateral source of caregiving for the child. Second, adults rely more than children do on “felt security” rather than on the actual physical presence of the attachment figure. Lon- ger periods of separation can be tolerated by adolescents and adults because they understand that attachment figures will be dependable and available when they need contact. Third, adult attachments typically involve a sexual partner or peer rather than a parent figure. THE PROCESS OF RELATIONSHIP FORMATION IN ADULTHOOD How does the attachment system of early childhood become transformed into the attachments of adulthood? Zeifman and Hazan (2016) chart the progress of attach- ments by tracing the behaviors that serve the goals of the system. In infancy, as we have stated, all four functions of the attachment system (proximity maintenance, sep- aration distress, secure base, safe haven) depend on the presence of an attachment figure, and infant behavior towards the caregiver clearly is adapted to meet these goals. As children get older, behaviors towards peers appear to serve some attachment functions as well. For example, children transfer some proximity-seeking behaviors to peers by early childhood. Children begin to spend more time with age-mates and seek them out as preferred playmates. By early adolescence, needs for intimacy and support are often met within the peer group, as you saw in Chapter 10, suggesting that needs for a safe haven in times of distress are directed to peers as well as parents. By late adolescence and early adulthood, romantic partners may satisfy all the needs of the attachment system. In a now classic study, Hazan and Zeifman (1999) asked children and adoles- cents from 6 to 17 years old a number of questions that tapped attachment needs. Researchers asked the participants whom they preferred to spend time with (proxim- ity maintenance), whom they turned to if they were feeling bad (safe haven), whom they disliked being separated from (separation distress), and whom they could always count on when they needed help (secure base). Results of this study supported shifts away from parents to peers, apparently preparing the way for adult attachment behaviors. The great majority of respondents sought proximity to peers instead of par- ents at all ages. Between the ages of 8 and 14, participants’ responses indicated a shift towards use of peers for safe haven as well. Most children and adolescents identi- fied parents as their secure base and the source of their separation distress. However, among those older participants who had established romantic relationships, all four attachment needs were met in the context of their pair-bonds. In a second study that included adults ages 18 to 82, the same researchers found that the majority of adults reported that their proximity-seeking and safe-haven behaviors were directed towards peers, especially romantic partners. Secure-base behaviors and feelings of separation distress tended to remain directed more towards parents until romantic relationships had proven themselves to endure, usually by two years into the relationship. Zeif- man and Hazan (2016) suggest that romantic relationships require about two years to become “full-blown attachments.” Their findings also show that nonromantic relation- ships can serve attachment functions in adulthood. These include relationships with 470 Chapter 12 FIGURE 12.1 Age changes in attachment and close relationships. TARGET OF ATTACHMENT BEHAVIORS DEVELOPMENTAL PHASE Parents Peers Infancy proximity maintenance safe haven secure base Early Childhood proximity maintenance safe haven secure base Late Childhood/ proximity maintenance Early Adolescence safe haven secure base Adulthood proximity maintenance safe haven secure base SOURCE: Hazan, C. & Shaver, R. (1994). Attachment as an organizational framework for research on close rela- tionships. Psychological Inquiry, 5, 1–11. Reprinted by permission of Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. friends, siblings, or parents. But the majority of adults eventually see their romantic partners as their chief attachment figure. See Figure 12.1 for a model of the attachment transfer process across age. INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN ADULT ATTACHMENTS The preceding discussion describes what might be considered normative processes involved in the development of adult attachments. Remember, however, that indi- viduals differ in their states of mind regarding attachment experiences, that is, in their internal working models. Do these different “states of mind” predict different approaches to peer or romantic relationships in adulthood? To shed light on this question, we must recall that each tradition of attachment research has its own way of looking at these issues. Even though researchers in both traditions start from the same premise, namely that adults’ attachment styles will resemble Ainsworth’s infant attachment typology, the typical measures used in the peer/romantic relationship tra- dition are different from those of the nuclear family tradition. Adult romantic relation- ship research began with self-report or questionnaire measures that were presumed to tap conscious, rather than unconscious, expectations about relationships. The sheer volume of work done in the area of measurement prevents a comprehensive discus- sion of this topic in this chapter. However, we will present an introduction to certain key issues and describe some important instruments. The interested reader is referred to Crowell and colleagues (2016) for a more thorough presentation. The first influential measure of adult romantic attachment, developed by Hazan and Shaver (1987), asked adults to identify which of three statements (see Table 12.2) best captured their approach to and beliefs about romantic relationships. Descriptive statements represented avoidant, anxious-ambivalent, and secure classifications. As TABLE 12.2 Three Attachment Prototypes in Peer/Romantic Tradition Avoidant. I am somewhat uncomfortable being close to others; I find it difficult to trust them completely, difficult to allow myself to depend on them. I am nervous when anyone gets too close, and often, love partners want me to be more intimate than I feel comfortable being. Anxious-ambivalent. I find that others are reluctant to get as close as I would like. I often worry that my partner doesn’t really love me or won’t want to stay with me. I want to get very close to my partner, and this sometimes scares people away. Secure. I find it relatively easy to get close to others and am comfortable depending on them. I don’t often worry about being abandoned or about some- one getting too close to me. SOURCE: Based on Hazan, C., & Shaver, P. R. (1987). Romantic love conceptualized as an attachment process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 52, 515. Reprinted by permission of the American Psychological Association.  Socioemotional and Vocational Development in Young Adulthood 471 measurement was refined and attempts to integrate the fields of FIGURE 12.2 Bartholomew’s typology: nuclear family and adult peer attachments increased, research- A four-category model of adult attachment ers recognized that the category called “avoidant” from Hazan categories. and Shaver’s instrument did not correspond to the “dismissing” category of the AAI. The avoidant person clearly acknowledged Positive Model of Other anxiety about getting too close to another, whereas the dismissing individual reported no subjective distress. Faced with the needs to include both aspects of avoidance, Bar- tholomew and her colleagues (Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991; Bar- tholomew & Shaver, 1998) proposed a new conceptual framework SECURE PREOCCUPIED consisting of four categories across two dimensions. Figure 12.2 illustrates this typology which operationalized Bowlby’s view that Positive Negative working models of the self and of others are interrelated. People Model of Model of Self Self are thought to develop expectations about how reliably their sig- nificant others will behave in close relationships, as well as expecta- tions about how worthy or unworthy they are of care and support. DISMISSING FEARFUL Four categories of attachment orientation are defined by crossing the working model of self with the working model of others. In Bartholomew’s typology, secure individuals have internal- ized a positive sense of themselves along with positive models Negative of others. In general, they expect others to be available and sup- Model of Other portive of their needs in close relationships. They are comfortable with emotional closeness but are also reasonably autonomous. SOURCE: Bartholomew, K. & Shaver, P. (1998). Methods of assess- ing adult attachment: Do they converge? In J. A. Simpson & W. S. Individuals classified as preoccupied hold positive models of others Rholes (Eds.), Attachment theory and close relationships (pp. 25–45). but negative models of themselves. Others are viewed as not valu- New York, NY: Guilford Press. Used by permission of Guilford Pub- lications, Inc. ing the preoccupied person as much as he values them. Preoccu- pied attachment is marked by emotional demandingness, anxiety about gaining acceptance from others, fear of and hypervigilance to cues of rejection, and excessive preoccupation with relationships. The avoidant category is subdivided into two, based on reports of felt distress. Dismissing individuals are characterized by a positive model of the self but a nega- tive model of the other. Denying the need for close relationships permits these adults to maintain a sense of superiority while devaluing the importance of others to their well-being. Self-sufficiency is preferred, and anxiety about attachment relationships is inhibited. A fearful attachment is the product of negative models of both self and others. For individuals with this style, attachments are desirable but seen as out of reach. Their desire for close relationships with others is thwarted by fear of rejection, and ultimately they withdraw. A high level of distress surrounds attachment themes. The use of categories such as the ones we have just described is intuitively under- standable and attractive but poses a number of problems. There is a danger of failing to recognize that individual differences often exist on a continuum, reflecting the degree to which a certain tendency is exhibited (e.g., high to low levels of anxiety), as opposed to differences in kind (highly anxious vs. not anxious). Therefore, measurements that place people in quadrants will undoubtedly mask the continuity that actually exists along the underlying dimensions. This kind of categorization may actually underestimate the real continuity of attachment patterns from childhood to adulthood and diminish the strength of associations between attachment research from the parental and romantic traditions. It may be convenient to use a typology, but a number of studies suggest that attachment scales are really measuring two continuous dimensions: avoidance and anx- iety (e.g., Brennan, Clark, & Shaver, 1998; Crowell et al., 2016; Fraley & Roisman, 2014). For helping professionals, a dimensional perspective may make it easier to think of individuals as operating within a range of possible behaviors. Specific attachment patterns should be viewed as tendencies to perceive and act in certain ways but not as guarantees that individuals will always operate according to type. So clinicians and other helpers should avoid “typecasting” clients on the basis of attachment categories that are fixed and orthogonal, a practice that can distort clinical judgment by acting as a cognitive bias or stereotype. It may be more helpful to keep in mind that the most basic issues involved in relationships concern a person’s level of anxiety about social 472 Chapter 12 interaction and his level of approach or avoidance. The prototypical classifications may best represent individuals with very pronounced characteristics at the extremes of the anxiety-avoidance dimensions. It is probably more accurate to think of people having particular attachment styles rather than classifications, which is a less forgiving term. It may also be helpful to keep in mind that there is wide variability in behavioral expression of anxiety and of approach-avoidance in relationships. RESEARCH ON YOUNG ADULT DYADIC RELATIONSHIPS Western research in the peer/romantic tradition has uncovered a number of interest- ing aspects of dyadic relationship patterns that are related to attachment style. The focus of most of this work has been the exploration of how individual differences in attachment orientations play out in areas of social interaction. Let us take a brief look at some of the results of these investigations in areas of concern to young adults: part- ner selection, satisfaction with and stability of relationships, communication and con- flict resolution styles, and engagement in casual sexual contact. When appropriate, we will also consider how gender differences mediate these relationships. Partner Selection. What contributes to romantic interest in another person? In par- MyLab Education ticular, does the attachment status or style of either potential partner influence who Video Example 12.1 Research has uncovered interest- chooses whom? Researchers approach this question in two primary ways. First, they ing connections between attach- use experimental studies, presenting participants with vignettes describing potential ment style and young adult dyadic romantic partners and asking them to rate their attraction or interest in dating those relationships. Consider how these individuals. This technique allows the experimenter to hold constant other factors that research findings might relate to the are known to affect partner selection, such as the physical attractiveness or career suc- dilemma of the young woman in cess of the potential partner, while examining the impact of behavioral descriptions this video. that suggest the potential partner’s attachment style as secure, avoidant, or anxious. Researchers can look at whether the participants’ own attachment status, or the attach- ment status of the prospective partner, affects their choices. These studies consistently show that people are most attracted to others who are secure, regardless of their own attachment status (Finkel & Eastwick, 2015; Pepping, Taylor, Koh, & Halford, 2017). In many studies, the next most appealing potential part- ner is an anxious person—someone who craves intimacy. Finally, people claim to least prefer avoidant partners, who avoid intimacy. But there is also some evidence that “like chooses like.” Everyone is more likely to choose a potential mate who seems secure, but anxious individuals favor other anxious individuals more than avoidant ones, and in a few studies, avoidant individuals favor avoidant individuals somewhat more often than anxious ones (Holmes & Johnson, 2009; Pietromonaco & Beck, 2015). These experimental studies examine people’s initial attraction, when they have minimal information. A second kind of study looks at the characteristics of existing couples, those whose relationship has endured for several months or even years. First, as you might expect, secure individuals, who neither avoid intimacy nor are desper- ately in search of it, are more often paired with other secure rather than insecure part- ners (Holmes & Johnson, 2009; Pietromonaco & Beck, 2015). Katie and Phil, introduced at the beginning of this chapter, seem to be a clear example of such a pair. However, pairings of insecure individuals are often not what you might expect from the experi- mental studies of initial attraction. Attachment theory predicts that insecure people will usually select partners who confirm their expectations or working models of close relationships. Avoidant part- ners, who are fearful or dismissing of intimacy, would expect partners to cling and overwhelm them with their demandingness. Anxious partners, who crave closeness, may expect rejection and believe that their needs for intimacy will go unmet. Thus, an avoidant individual might pair with an anxious one, fulfilling expectations of both partners. In other words, the theory predicts that “complementary pairings” between insecure individuals would be more common than “similarity pairings.” Several studies have documented the fact that avoidant-avoidant and anxious- anxious pairings are rare. For example, in an early study of 354 heterosexual couples, not a single couple showed either of these patterns. Consistent with attachment theory, similarity pairings seem to violate people’s expectations from their working models,  Socioemotional and Vocational Development in Young Adulthood 473 and therefore are not very likely to endure. What is far more likely is the complemen- tary pairing of avoidant with anxious mates, and studies of both heterosexual and homosexual couples have found a preponderance of such matches among insecure individuals (Mohr & Jackson, 2016; Pietromanco & Beck, 2015). At this point, although the findings match the predictions of attachment theory, it is unclear whether romantic partners always enter relationships with these com- plementary attachment styles or whether something in the nature of the relationship alters the attachment style. As you will see in Box 12.1, attachment styles can change with experience in a romantic relationship, but the probability of change is not large. Intimacy, Satisfaction, and Stability of Relationships. Consistent with attach- ment theory, the attachment styles of romantic partners help predict their emotional closeness and mutual acceptance—the intimacy of their relationships. The quantity and quality of both caregiving and sexual experience are affected. Highly avoidant partners tend to provide less physical comfort to their partners and their care tends to be less sensitive and nurturing. With primary romantic partners, they engage in sex less frequently than secure people, even though they might be more inclined than others to have casual, uncommitted sex (see below). Highly anxious partners are more controlling and intrusive in their caregiving than secure partners, and they are more likely to view sexual relations as a way of avoiding rejection and strengthening their attachment (Birnbaum, 2016; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2016). Not surprisingly, feelings of commitment and relationship satisfaction are also tied to people’s attachment styles. Some studies assess attachment status at one time and follow up later with assessments of partners’ interactions and/or feelings about their relation- ships (Holland & Roisman, 2010; Holland, Fraley, & Roisman, 2012). Secure individuals tend to experience more positive and less negative emotion, to have more harmonious interactions with their partners, and to report greater satisfaction in their relationships than those who are insecure. They also report more trust, commitment, and interdepen- dence. Katie and Phil illustrate how two secure partners are likely to support one another through difficult transitions. For example, Katie’s trust and commitment were sustained despite setbacks and changes in the life course the couple had planned. Highly avoidant partners report weaker interdependence and less commitment; highly anxious people are more likely to say that their relationships lack trust. There are also some interesting gender differences. Avoidant males experience less distress when their relationships end than others, but that is not the case for avoidant females. Perhaps this is due to the com- monly held perception that women are primarily responsible for maintenance of per- sonal relationships and so they feel more accountable for the partnership’s success. Overall, when both partners are insecure, relationship satisfaction tends to suffer, and anxious attachment seems to be especially problematic (Feeney, 2016; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2016; Sobral, Teixeira, & Costa, 2015). The lowest levels of satisfaction are usually reported by couples composed of avoidant men and anxious women (e.g., Kirkpatrick & Davis, 1994). Yet these matches are typically about as stable as matches between more satisfied, secure partners. The couples who are most vulnerable to breaking up seem to be those made up of anxious men and avoidant women. Once again, this may have some- thing to do with women being the stereotypical tenders of relationships. Avoidant women may be less skilled at accommodating, or less motivated to accommodate, the needs of the more dependent partner. Anxious women, overly concerned with possibilities of abandonment, might be more willing to do what it takes to maintain a relationship with an avoidant partner, perhaps explaining the high level of stability in these relationships. Communication Style and Conflict Resolution. Consider for a moment a problem that you experienced at some time in one of your close relationships. Now reflect on how you dealt with that problem. Was your response typical of the way you usually deal with relationship problems? You undoubtedly know, by virtue of your training, that when faced with a relationship’s inevitable glitches, it is a good idea to be open, nondefensive, reasonably assertive, and yet flexible enough to compromise. Keeping a clear head so that problem solving can be effective is another requirement. Easier said than done, you’re probably thinking! Why is it often so hard to do this well? 474 Chapter 12 Box 12.1: The Benefits of Love: Stability and Change in Adult Attachment Styles A child’s attachment status can change if the caregiving environ- This was especially true of those who began with a secure ment changes. We saw in Chapter 4, for example, that major attachment. The relationships formed by secure partners were disruptions of family life, such as parents’ divorce or loss of also more secure. As we would expect from other studies, the employment, can impact the quality of care a child receives partnerships of secure individuals were more intimate from the and alter the security of the child’s attachment. Is an adult’s beginning, and they had fewer difficulties, like arguments or ver- attachment style open to revision? If so, it seems likely that such bal aggression, during the first 18 months of marriage. Accord- change would happen primarily in the context of major relation- ing to attachment theory, a working model of attachment should ship shifts—after marriage, or with parenting, or because of the be fairly stable by adulthood, representing a characteristic state dissolution of an intimate partnership. Crowell, Treboux, and of mind in relationship contexts that affects the behavior of the Waters (2002) studied stability and change in young adults’ individual and that in turn affects the responses of the relation- attachment representations after they were married, expecting ship partner. As we have seen, these mental and behavioral that although stability might be the rule, the intimacy and intensity patterns begin in infancy, evolve through childhood and adoles- of marital relationships could be especially conducive to positive cence, and become more entrenched with time. As a result, we change for some individuals. should not only expect stability in the attachment status of the One hundred fifty-seven couples, averaging about 24 years typical adult, but also find that his relationships tend to reflect his old, were recruited for the study when they sought marriage attachment style. licenses in one county of New York State. None was previously As you know, attachment theory states that working models married and none had children. They had already been together can be influenced by new input. If a new relationship provides for an average of 51 months, although most (about 67%) were truly different interactive experiences from those that have come still living separately, usually with their parents. These young men before, then change is possible. The researchers found that and women were tested 3 months before and 18 months after nearly all secure individuals remained secure at the end of the their weddings. At each assessment they were given an attach- study, but over 20% of individuals who were insecure at the ment classification based on an Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). beginning of the study were secure by the second assessment. In addition, participants completed a “Family Behavior Survey,” Those who changed were more likely to have been classified as answering questions about amount of happiness, discord, and preoccupied than as dismissing at the beginning of the study. aggression in their relationship. Finally, each partner participated It may be that because dismissing individuals tend to avoid inti- in a “Current Relationship Interview.” In these interviews, they macy, they are less likely to experience the kinds of support that were required to use adjectives to characterize their own and can transform one’s expectations of relationships. The “became their partners’ behaviors, and they had to provide examples secure” participants were no more likely than the “stable inse- that supported those descriptions. They also talked about what cure” participants to be paired with a secure partner, suggest- factors were important aspects of, and influences on, their rela- ing that “a committed, devoted, but insecure partner can be as tionships, and about qualities of their interaction in different cir- effective as a secure partner in fostering growth and change, cumstances, such as when one partner was sick or upset. and may even be relatively tolerant and supportive of a partner’s From these interviews, the researchers assigned each partici- secure-base ‘missteps’” (p. 476). The telling difference between pant a relationship rating. A relationship, like an attachment sta- the “became secure” and the “stable insecure” groups was that tus, could be classified as “secure,” “dismissing,” “preoccupied,” the “became secure” group had more positive relationships, or “unresolved.” Individuals whose relationships were secure, even before the wedding. They were more intimate, happy, and for example, were likely to report examples of shared comfort passionate, and there was somewhat less discord than in the and support, saw their partnership as an opportunity for both relationships of the “stable insecure” participants. The “became partners to grow, and spoke coherently about the importance secure” group also tended to have more education and to have of attachment elements, like emotional closeness. In dismiss- lived away from parents prior to marriage. “This suggests that ing relationships, individuals tended to express support for their experiences and opportunity in such settings (e.g., exposure to partners only conditionally, that is, only for concerns that they new ideas, new people, and new relationships), as well as physi- regarded as important. They also talked more about the mate- cal and psychological distance from parents, facilitate the recon- rial or personal goals they had for their relationship (e.g., we’ll be ceptualization of childhood attachment relationships” (Crowell et buying a house together) than they did about factors like their al., 2002, p. 476). If we think of the parent–child relationship as a emotional bond. In preoccupied relationships, partners spoke child’s “first love,” it does indeed seem that love can be sweeter of feeling anxious about their partners’ expressed concerns and the second time around. about the relationship, sometimes manifesting that anxiety as Can therapeutic interventions promote more secure attach- anger or confusion. ments? For romantic partners who struggle because of insecure As expected, for the majority of participants (78%), attach- attachment styles, successful couples’ therapy does seem to ment status remained stable through the marriage transition. modify partners’ working models of relationships, helping them  Socioemotional and Vocational Development in Young Adulthood 475 shift from insecure to more secure approaches and expecta- behaviors (Wiebe & Johnson, 2016; see the Applications sec- tions (Coy & Miller, 2014). For example, emotionally focused tion). In addition, studies measuring attachment pre- and post- couple therapy (Johnson, 2004) is an evidence-based treatment therapy for couples who have completed the full therapeutic that tracks and highlights for couples the negative patterns that protocol have found increases in security scores and decreases emerge from their expectations and styles of interaction. It has in avoidance and anxiety scores on attachment measures (e.g., been shown to help couples restructure their conflict-induced Moser et al., 2015). One reason is that conflict and communication in close relationships frequently have one or more subtexts: love, loss, trust, and abandonment, to name a few. In short, conflicts are stressful, they elicit emotions, and, perhaps, they can trigger the patterns of emotion regulation learned in the earliest of attachment relationships. Many studies have documented the advantages of attachment security for interpersonal commu- nication (Feeney, 2016; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2016). Secure individuals display more reciprocity and flexibility in communication. Greater self-disclosure characterizes the communication of secure and anxious groups as compared to avoidant ones. Several studies also document the advantages of having a secure orientation when it comes to solving problems (Pistole, 1989). In general, secure individuals are more apt to com- promise in ways that are mutually beneficial. Avoidant individuals tend to be more uncompromising, whereas anxious individuals tend to give in. What actually happens when a couple has to deal with conflict in the relation- ship? According to attachment theory, the conflict produces stress, which activates the attachment system, makes the working models more accessible, and influences how affect gets regulated. Simpson, Rholes, and Phillips (1996) asked 123 heterosex- ual couples, who had been dating from 6 months to 2 years, to discuss problems in their relationships. Participants were videotaped, and their interactions were rated by observers. Secure individuals were less defensive than insecure ones, and they held the most favorable views of their partners after discussing a major problem. Avoid- ant participants kept the greatest emotional distance in the discussion. Presumably uncomfortable with the expression of emotion, they appeared to minimize personal involvement. By the same token, they did not display evidence of anger, distress, or less positive views of their partners. Avoidant men provided less warmth and support- iveness to their partners, consistent with theoretical predictions. In contrast, avoidant women did not display this pattern in this study. The strength of society’s mandate that women be relationship caretakers might, in certain circumstances, override avoid- ant dispositions. But this is not the case in every close relationship. With friends and colleagues, both male and female adolescents and adults with avoidant styles do less to build or maintain closeness and they provide less emotional support than more secure individuals (Phillips, Simpson, Lanigan, & Rholes, 1995; Shomaker & Furman, 2009; Sias, Gallagher, Kopaneva, & Pedersen, 2012). Ambivalent partners in the study by Simpson and colleagues (1996) reacted with the most negative emotion to the discussion of problems, displaying high levels of stress and anxiety during the interaction. They also reported feeling more hostility and anger towards their partners after the session. Consistent with attachment theory, these individuals expect their partners to fail at meeting their needs in stressful situa- tions. Rholes and his colleagues explain the phenomenon in this way: Conflict elicits a cascade of unpleasant feelings in ambivalent persons, and it should raise doubts about the quality and viability of their current partner and relationship. Moreover, if fears of abandonment become salient, ambivalent partners ought to dero- gate the partner and relationship to minimize or “prepare for” potential loss. Persons who are not ambivalent, in contrast, may not experience conflict as aversive, but as an occasion in which open communication and the joint, constructive sharing of feelings can occur. (Rholes, Simpson, & Stevens, 1998, pp. 181–182) Attachment style affects more than just a couple’s interactions in conflict situa- tions. It also affects their physiological responses. We noted earlier that dismissing and preoccupied individuals appear to have distinctive physiological responses in situa- tions that arouse the attachment system, such as participation in the AAI. Dismissing 476 Chapter 12 people tend to show increased electrodermal reactivity (i.e., increased skin conduc- tance), which is associated with effortful emotional inhibition, whereas preoccupied people may show increased heart rate, which is associated with higher behavioral activation. Roisman (2007) observed both young engaged couples (ages 18 to 30) and older couples (older than 50, married for at least 15 years). After completing the AAI, the couples were asked to identify and discuss a problem area in their relationship and to try to resolve it. In these conflict discussions, dismissing individuals showed increased electrodermal reactivity and preoccupied individuals showed increased heart rate, regardless of age or length of relationship. In contrast, secure individuals showed little physiological change in these mildly stressful conversations. (Similar findings are reported by Holland & Roisman, 2010.) The physiological data are consis- tent with the idea that dismissing adults are motivated to avoid their partners when they are asked to resolve problems in the relationship, whereas preoccupied adults tend to be emotionally overinvolved in their relationships. What’s Love Got to Do with It? The Hook-Up Culture and Attachment Style. As you have seen, one of the characteristics of emerging adulthood is the delay of impor- tant transitions, such as marriage. Experimentation with different forms of romantic rela- tionships and marriage delay increased over the last half century as reliable birth control methods became more available. Casual sex has become common for many young adults, described with terms like hook up, one-night-stand, friends-with-benefits, and booty call. We refer to any of these as casual sexual relationships, meaning that they are not part of formal romantic relationships (Claxton & Van Dalman, 2015). In essence, the participants are not romantic partners such as “boyfriend and girlfriend” or “exclusive” couples. In surveys of college students, between 50% and 80% report having had casual sex, although most sexual behavior still occurs with romantic partners (Vrangalova, 2015). Although most studies have surveyed college students, casual sex is also commonly reported in studies that include noncollege young adults (Lyons, Manning, Longmore, & Giordano, 2014). Casual sex seems to have both positive and negative impacts in the short term, and many reasons seem to contribute. For example, in one study adults were asked about their “morning after” feelings following one-night stands (Campbell, 2008). They rated 6 positive and 6 negative statements for how well the statements matched their own feelings, and they were invited to add further comments of their own. Both men and women endorsed feeling flattered and successful as the result of a desirable partner’s interest. Neither men nor women seemed to expect more from the relationship, or to see it as a way to test out the possibility of a longer term relationship. Women were typically less positive about the experience overall than men. In particular, they were more likely to endorse feeling used, whereas men were more likely to endorse feeling like a “user.” Women’s written comments suggest that they tended to feel used because they were disappointed by men’s behavior after the event, feeling rejected if the partner made an abrupt departure or failed to express appreciation. Overall, surveys indicate that positive feelings are linked to free and intentional choice, and having a pleasurable experience, including being well treated afterwards. Feelings of sadness or regret are more often associated with participating without clear intention or to prove something, or because of external pressure. Regret was also associated with having unfulfilling sex or with feel- ing mistreated by the partner (Garcia, Seibold-Simpson, Massey, & Merriwether, 2015). There is still much to learn about how casual sexual experiences influence the forma- tion of long-term relationships. One longitudinal study examined college students’ atti- tudes about casual sex and about committed love relationships both early and late in their freshman year (Katz & Schneider, 2013). Those who reported having casual sex showed a tendency to become more sexually permissive and more comfortable with casual genital contact over time. However, their attitudes towards love and its potential importance in their lives did not change, regardless of participation in casual sex. Other researchers have found that most young adults, regardless of their sexual experiences, still pursue committed love relationships and want to marry (Shulman & Connolly, 2015). How does attachment style relate to casual sex? First, we should note that in today’s culture, when large proportions of young adults have engaged in casual sex, it is not exclusively the province of people with one or another attachment style. However, there  Socioemotional and Vocational Development in Young Adulthood 477 are trends. First, as you might expect, avoidant individuals, especially males, are more likely to have promiscuous attitudes, regardless of whether they are engaged in com- mitted relationships. They tend to use sex to avoid emotional intimacy, expecting to enhance their self-esteem or to impress their peers (Birnbaum, 2016). Avoidant men (but not women) are also more likely than other men to be sexually coercive in dating situations (Karantzaset al., 2016). The destructive effects of an avoidant attachment style appear to be exacerbated by male sex role norms that glorify sexual conquest and invulnerability. Female sex role norms that emphasize the importance of nurturing may reduce women’s feelings of sexual entitlement, even for avoidant women (Birn- baum, 2016). Anxious attachments also seem to influence women and men differently when it comes to casual sex. Women with anxious attachment styles seem to be more likely than other women to confuse sex with love. Compared to secure or avoidant women, they begin having sex earlier, they have more positive attitudes towards casual sex, they engage in more of it, and they are more likely to give in to coercive tactics (Birn- baum, 2016). Anxious men seem to feel especially vulnerable in the traditional role of sexual initiator, perhaps because they risk interpersonal rejection. They tend to view casual sex less positively than other men, and they have fewer sex partners over time (Cooper et al., 2006). However, they have a somewhat greater tendency to force sex on a partner than secure men, perhaps because they sometimes feel desperate for proxim- ity when they perceive a partner as unresponsive (Birnbaum, 2016). In general, attachment theory serves as a useful template for conceptualizing the universal human needs served by close, interpersonal relationships as well as the systematic differences individuals display in all of their personal associations. Clini- cians are already very familiar with the notion that certain qualities of family relation- ships experienced early in life tend to get repeated in later relationships. Although not derivative of attachment theory per se, psychoanalytic and some family therapy approaches, such as Bowen’s (1978), advise clients to examine the nature of conflicted childhood relationships within their family of origin in an effort to achieve insight and gain the freedom to make more adaptive relationship choices in the present. Other therapeutic approaches, such as Johnson’s (2004; Wiebe & Johnson, 2016) emotionally focused couple therapy, are aimed at helping couples recognize the problematic inter- active behaviors that are linked to their long-standing attachment styles (see Box 12.1 and the Applications section). MyLab Education Self-Check 12.1 Work 12.2 Determine level of compatibility between an individual’s personal characteristics and the demands of a chosen career and suggest effective approaches to enhance the process of career development. For most young adults, the launching of a vocational life is as important a develop- mental task as the process of forming or reforming attachments. What are the key elements in a successful launch? A large body of theory and research has addressed this question. The theories share in common a general notion that career success and satisfaction depend heavily on matching the characteristics of an individual and the demands of a job. If this notion is correct, then self-knowledge is a critical element in career decision making. Thus, not only is establishing an occupational role an impor- tant part of identity or self-concept development, it is also an emergent property of that process. The stronger our sense of who we are as we become adults is, the more likely we are to make good career choices. Two classic theories of career develop- ment will illustrate this. 478 Chapter 12 Some Theories of the Career Development Process HOLLAND’S THEORY OF PERSONAL ORIENTATION–ENVIRONMENT TYPES Holland’s (1997) theory is the most widely applied approach to explaining how per- sonal interests and behavioral inclinations relate to vocational development. The assumptions of his theory have a great deal of empirical support, and the measure- ment techniques he constructed are widely used in the vocational counseling field, including by college career counselors. Holland suggests that by early adulthood each individual has a modal personal orientation (also called a personal style): a typical pattern of interests and preferred style or approach to dealing with social and envi- ronmental tasks. Holland proposed that most people can be categorized as having one of six modal orientations (described in Table 12.3), which can be seen as part of each individual’s personality. (We will discuss other aspects of personality in Chapter 13.) According to Holland, a job or career typically makes demands on an individual that are compatible with one or more of these interactive types. That is, a job can be con- strued as creating an environment within which a certain personal orientation will lead to both success and happiness. For example, one of the personal orientation types is “social.” A social type is likely to be sociable, friendly, cooperative, kind, tactful, and understanding and is often a good match to occupations that involve working with others to educate, to cure, or to enlighten them—such as counseling or social work (Ferreira, Rodrigues, & Costa Ferreira, 2016). A contrasting type is the “enterprising” individual. He too is likely to be sociable, but more domineering, energetic, ambitious, talkative, and attention getting. He is also likely to be more effective in vocational tasks that involve maneuvering others to achieve goals, such as reaching a certain level of sales, or more efficiently delivering services as a salesperson, for instance, MyLab Education or as an executive. Thus, each type of modal personal orientation, such as social or Video Example 12.2 enterprising, is also a type of vocational environment. Usually, neither individuals nor A career counselor applies Hol- environments fall neatly into only one “type.” Holland and his colleagues have devel- land’s theory of personal orien- oped coding systems for rating both individuals and environments. In these systems, tation-environment types to help Laura, a college student, reflect and three-letter codes indicate the most characteristic style for the individual or the envi- narrow her diverse set of career ronment, as well as the second and third most characteristic styles. So, for example, a interests. What personal style most person (or environment) might be coded RIS, meaning primarily realistic (R), second- closely matches Laura’s interests arily investigative (I), and finally social (S). See Table 12.3 for some characteristics of and behavioral inclinations? these types for individuals.) Consider Phil from the beginning of this chapter, who found that his first job was not a good fit. Suppose he had gone to the career counseling center at his college. Career counselors have available a number of different assessment questionnaires that can be used to help determine interests and identify typical personal styles. Phil might have found that his typical styles included “Social.” You will recall that his first job was in finance, a position that required spending hours alone with spreadsheets. Phil had the cognitive ability and academic training to manage the work, but the job’s minimal requirement for interpersonal engagement did not converge well with his personal style. Studies spanning several decades have corroborated two important claims of Hol- land’s theory. First, the interests and behavioral inclinations that comprise personal style are relatively stable over time, from adolescence through middle adulthood (Schultz, Connolly, Garrison, Leveille, & Jackson, 2017; Stoll et al., 2017). They can and do change for some individuals, but early personal style tends to persist for most. Sec- ond, a good fit (convergence) between modal orientation and job characteristics is cor- related with job satisfaction, performance, and stability, as well as feelings of personal well-being (Nye, Su, Rounds, & Drasgow, 2017; Phan & Rounds, 2018; Wille, Tracey, Feys, & Fruyt, 2014). Some early studies of specific occupations provide good exam- ples. Gottfredson and Holland (1990) studied young adult bank tellers for 4 months after they were first hired. Congruence between an individual’s personal style and job type was clearly correlated with job satisfaction. In two studies of school teachers, Meir (1989) examined several kinds of congruence or fit: between personal style and job type, between personal style and outside activities (avocations), and between the  Socioemotional and Vocational Development in Young Adulthood 479 TABLE 12.3 Some Characteristics of Holland’s Personality Types REALISTIC INVESTIGATIVE ARTISTIC Conforming Analytical Complicated Dogmatic Cautious Disorderly Genuine Complex Emotional Hardheaded Critical Expressive Inflexible Curious Idealistic Materialistic Independent Imaginative Natural Intellectual Impractical Normal Introverted Impulsive Persistent Pessimistic Independent Practical Precise Introspective Realistic Radical Intuitive Reserved Rational Nonconforming Robust Reserved Open Self-effacing Retiring Original Uninsightful Unassuming Sensitive SOCIAL ENTERPRISING CONVENTIONAL Agreeable Acquisitive Careful Cooperative Adventurous Conforming Empathic Ambitious Conscientious Friendly Assertive Dogmatic Generous Domineering Efficient Helpful Energetic Inflexible Idealistic Enthusiastic Inhibited Kind Excitement seeking Methodical Patient Exhibitionistic Obedient Persuasive Extroverted Orderly Responsible Forceful Persistent Sociable Optimistic Practical Tactful Resourceful Thorough Understanding Self-confident Thrifty Warm Sociable Unimaginative individual’s particular skills and opportunities to use those skills on the job. All three kinds of congruence predicted the participants’ reported feelings of well-being. A per- son’s happiness seems to be linked to the fit between his personal style and both his work, as Holland predicted, and his leisure pursuits. It appears that creating a good match in one arena can help compensate for a lack of congruence in another.