Pronouns provide clues to romantic attachment styles

Sometimes people would like to have a better idea of ​​what their partner actually feels. A recent work in social psychology and personality delves into the stories that people tell about their romantic relationships and finds that those who are inclined to avoid attachment are less likely to use the word "we" to speak of these relationships.

The results appear in the log Social psychological science and personality.

"The pronouns used by individuals to tell their previous experiences in their romantic lives provide a clue to their corresponding attachment styles," says Will Dunlop (University of California, Riverside), lead author of the research.

Typically, attachment styles are represented by two factors: anxiety (reflecting how much a person is preoccupied with their partner in love and fearing to lose it) and avoidance (reflecting the degree of discomfort she experiences with get closer and according to his partner).

Dunlop and his colleagues examined more than 1,400 observations from seven studies, then explored relationships between romantic attachment styles of adults and the use of pronouns.

They found that anxious and avoidant attachment styles were positively correlated with I-talk and negatively with we-talk, but once they took into account the demographics and personality traits of the participants , the correlation between anxiety attachment and the use of the pronoun was no longer significant. But for the types of attachment avoiding, the lack of use of the "we" remained strong.

Dunlop suggests that the way individuals describe their love experiences could also shed light on how this person might behave and interact in romantic relationships.

"Anxious and avoidant attachment styles capture individual differences in thinking, feeling and behaving in love relationships, since people with higher avoidance attachment levels demonstrate Lower levels of conversation when we describe the experiences of their romantic lives, consider the use of words (eg, we, ours) in the disclosure of previous romantic experiences can give an indication of its avoidant tendencies It is a relatively new and indirect means of measuring avoidance attachment, since individuals usually ignore the pronouns they have use of. "

For future research, Dunlop is curious to know what clues stories from other areas (eg, his professional life) can offer as an attachment and other indicators of fit. He also wonders what link, if any, can exist between the use of the pronoun and the overall satisfaction of people's love life.