A new study published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships sought to determine if there is a benefit for spouses who struggle with attachment insecurity (anxiety or avoidance) to have unrealistic beliefs about their partner’s positive and caring traits.
The study revealed mixed results; in newlywed heterosexual couples where one spouse experiences attachment insecurity, positive illusions about the partner’s dyadic perspective-taking supported higher satisfaction rates over two years. But there were a few participants whose positive illusions created greater insecurity and dissatisfaction. These findings may indicate that fostering positive illusions about spouses can mitigate the consequences of attachment insecurity.
Attachment theory posits that due to childhood relationships with caregivers, individuals grow into adulthood with behaviors and attitudes about close relationships that can have either positive or negative consequences. Attachment insecurity can develop through both anxious and avoidant attachment. In anxious attachment, there is insecurity around rejection and abandonment; avoidant attachment causes people to distrust their partner as they seek to develop intimacy.
In order to control for the negative consequences of these attachment styles, the research team wanted to investigate if positive beliefs about the spouse would increase marital satisfaction.
“I was interested in how attachment insecurity affects people’s perceptions of their romantic partner,” explained study author Richard Rigby, a graduate student at Simon Fraser University and member of the Close Relationships Lab. “I brought this interest to my supervisor (Dr. Cobb), and she suggested I look at positive illusions. As I started researching, I realized how powerful positive illusions are in maintaining relationships and started thinking less about how attachment insecurity changes perceptions and how perceptions may buffer attachment insecurity.”
“Positive illusions help people weather stormy parts of their relationship by reassuring them that their partner is a good choice. I felt this reassurance would help insecure individuals immensely. Especially if they were positive illusions about a quality that makes the insecure person feel understood, which is why I investigated positive illusions about dyadic perspective taking (i.e., can my partner see things from my perspective).”
“Some other studies had found the negative effects of an individual’s attachment insecurity can be reduced if their partner acts in supportive ways (i.e., partner insecurity buffering). I thought the positive illusions people have about their partner may act in a similar way to their partners’ actual observed support behaviour. However, I also thought about the drawbacks of positive illusions; would they set insecure people up for greater disappointment when their partner did not live up to these exaggerated perceptions? I thought this would be a great project for my master’s thesis.”
The study included 196 newly married heterosexual couples who agreed to remain in the study for an average period of 8 years. Subjects were recruited through newspapers and online media. At the beginning of the study, couples were to fill out surveys every three months. These assessments collected data on marital satisfaction, self and other perspective-taking, and attachment insecurity. In addition, the couples attended two sessions in the lab, one three months after the wedding, and one at the end of the study.
The study’s results revealed that for short-term conflict management, believing your spouse can take your point of view, and believing their capacity to do that is greater than what it actually is, increases marital satisfaction. There were some instances where the opposite was found; believing the spouse can generously understand their point of view resulted in decreased marital satisfaction.
“Many studies, including mine, indicate positive illusions are generally great for relationships,” Rigby told PsyPost. “But my study highlights that when insecurity is present, the role of positive illusions is much more complicated. In some instances, positive illusions are great!”
“They are particularly good in a relationship with a husband who has trouble being emotionally open (high attachment avoidance). If he thinks his wife is excellent at seeing things from his perspective, and these perceptions exaggerate her true abilities (high positive illusions), his insecurity may matter less to the couple’s relationship satisfaction (a buffering effect).”
“But in other cases, positive illusions do not have this buffering effect, but rather make the relationship between insecurity and declines in marriage satisfaction stronger (a potentiation effect),” Rigby explained. “This seems to occur if the wife has high attachment avoidance, or the husband has high attachment anxiety. So, positive illusions about dyadic perspective taking seem to be overall great for avoidant husbands (and their partners), but potentially have negative long-term effects for avoidant wives and anxiously attached husbands.”
The researchers were surprised by the complexity of their findings.
“I expected that positive illusions would be good at reducing the negative effects of insecurity in the moment, but was slightly less convinced that positive illusions would have protective long-term effects,” Rigby said. “Instead, we had the surprising results where positive illusions were great short and long-term for husbands with high attachment avoidance, but had more negative long-term effects for wives with high attachment avoidance and husbands with high attachment anxiety. Having results with contrasting gender differences was surprising.”
“I was initially surprised that positive illusions appeared to be less beneficial for people with high attachment anxiety,” the researcher added. “Attachment anxiety is normally associated with reassurance-seeking in relationships, and I thought positive illusions would help provide reassurance. But it makes sense why it is not helpful because people with attachment anxiety have poor working models of the self, meaning they are worried they are not worthy of a relationship. Thinking that their partner is amazingly empathetic may reassure them that their partner is fantastic, but their insecurity that they are unworthy of a good partner may wash out those benefits.”
The research team acknowledged a few limitations. First, as marriage evolves, had the study been longer, different results may have been obtained. Second, the data was based on self-reports by the participants, making the data vulnerable to bias.
Rigby also pointed out some areas for future research.
“We used a specific positive illusion about dyadic perspective-taking because we felt that empathy would be an important quality to investigate,” the researchers said. “However, positive illusions can be measured about any quality (e.g., agreeableness, kindness, humour). It would be interesting to see if different domains of positive illusions have different effects.”
“The gender differences need further investigation. Why are these positive illusions beneficial for husbands with high attachment avoidance, but are related to less satisfaction long term for wives with high attachment avoidance or husbands with high attachment anxiety? I feel it may have something to do with how men and women are socialized differently (i.e., emotional distance in North American society may be reinforced in men, but not in women; neediness is much less desirable in men than women). However, this is speculative and requires further investigation.”
“One thing we did not investigate was the partner-fulfilling prophecy of positive illusions,” Rigby added. “Previous studies have found that over time people often grow to embody their partner’s positive illusions (e.g., if I think my partner is good at taking my perspective, their perspective-taking skills are likely to grow over time). It would be interesting to see if this growth changes in the context of attachment insecurity.”
The study, “Positive illusions about dyadic perspective-taking as a moderator of the association between attachment insecurity and marital satisfaction“, was authored by Richard Rigby and Rebecca Cobb.
