Abstract
This study examined the extent to which personality traits and attachment orientations within distinct relationship domains (romantic, familial, and friendship) exhibited diffuse versus differentiated associations with attachments toward specific persons (e.g., current romantic partner, mother, best friend). The results were consistent with a hierarchically organized model of the attachment representational network containing global (personality) and specific (attachment) components. Autonomous and sociotropic personalities (controlling for the Big Five) were diffusely associated with attachments toward specific persons across domains, whereas domain-specific attachments were associated with specific attachments only within corresponding domains. Domain-specific attachment representations mediated the links between autonomy and sociotropy and relationship-specific attachments within corresponding domains. Autonomy and sociotropy capture global summaries of the same regularities in responding that underlie the attachment system.
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