You Can’t See the Real Me: Attachment Avoidance, Self-Verification, and Self-Concept Clarity

• Published in: Personality & social psychology bulletin 2018-08, Vol.44 (8), p.1133-1146
• Main Authors: Emery, Lydia F., Gardner, Wendi L., Carswell, Kathleen L., Finkel, Eli J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adult; Anxiety; Attachment; Avoidance behavior; Avoidance Learning; Brainstorming; Clarity; Confusion; Feedback; Female; Humans; Interpersonal Relations; Male; Object Attachment; Self Concept; Self Disclosure; Self esteem; Trust; Verification; Young Adult
• ISSN: 0146-1672; 1552-7433
• DOI: 10.1177/0146167218760799

Attachment shapes people’s experiences in their close relationships and their self-views. Although attachment avoidance and anxiety both undermine relationships, past research has primarily emphasized detrimental effects of anxiety on the self-concept. However, as partners can help people maintain stable self-views, avoidant individuals’ negative views of others might place them at risk for self-concept confusion. We hypothesized that avoidance would predict lower self-concept clarity and that less self-verification from partners would mediate this association. Attachment avoidance was associated with lower self-concept clarity (Studies 1-5), an effect that was mediated by low self-verification (Studies 2-3). The association between avoidance and self-verification was mediated by less self-disclosure and less trust in partner feedback (Study 4). Longitudinally, avoidance predicted changes in self-verification, which in turn predicted changes in self-concept clarity (Study 5). Thus, avoidant individuals’ reluctance to trust or become too close to others may result in hidden costs to the self-concept.