Psychological Development and Education ›› 2012, Vol. 28 ›› Issue (4): 442-448.

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The Stability of Attachment in Adulthood

WANG Yan, WANG Da-hua   

  1. Institute of Developmental Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875
  • Online:2012-07-15 Published:2012-07-15

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Abstract: Bowlby's attachment theory holds that the internal working models of attachment developed during childhood can influence the behavior in the interpersonal relations in future.As a result,adult attachment style laid down early years is able to persist,and this continuity of adult attachment can be shown by the stability of adult attachment style in different time.During the past 2 decades researches using different kinds of measurements have demonstrated that adult attachment is relatively stable.However,researchers have become interested in attachment instability and proposed life-stress model,social-cognitive model and individual-difference model to describe the predictors of attachment style change.Though there have been many researches about the stability of adult attachment,some aspect need to be improved further.

Key words: adulthood, stability of attachment, life-stress model, social-cognitive model, individualdifference model

CLC Number: 

  • B844. 3
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