Publication year
2014
Citation Title
With or without you: Preliminary evidence that attachment avoidance predicts nondeployed spouses’ reactions to relationship challenges during deployment
Journal Name
Professional Psychology: Research and Practice
Journal Volume
45
Issue Number
6
Page Numbers
478-487
DOI
10.1037/a0037780
Summary
Attachment avoidance, or having a relationship schema that involves avoiding thoughts or feelings about a threatened relationship, may influence military spouses adjustment during the deployment cycle. This study examined the effects of military wives levels of attachment avoidance on their relationship emotions and thoughts. Data suggested that greater attachment avoidance was related to more negative emotions about the relationship during deployment.
Key Findings
Spouses with greater pre-deployment attachment avoidance endorsed more anxiety when talking about the anticipated post-deployment reunion with their husband.
Spouses reported less anxiety overall when discussing reunion than deployment, but spouses low in attachment avoidance reported greater relief from anxiety when discussing reunion.
During deployment, high attachment avoidance spouses reported more negative emotions than low attachment avoidance spouses while thinking of a memory of the couple.
Spouses with high and low attachment avoidance reported no difference in relationship satisfaction post - deployment.
Implications for Program Leaders
Educate military families on potential stressors and ways to cope during deployment
Offer post-deployment workshops for military families to help adjust to changes, including changes in communication and intimacy
Disseminate information regarding attachment styles and difficulties military family members may experience during post-deployment reintegration
Implications for Policy Makers
Continue to support programs and technological innovations that facilitate communication between military families and deployed Service members
Encourage additional research on the effects of attachment styles for military family adjustment during the deployment cycle
Recommend professional education on attachment styles for military family professionals
Methods
Military wives were recruited via social media, online advertising, and word-of-mouth to provide data regarding relationships during pre-deployment, deployment, and post-deployment.
Wives completed relationship surveys during all deployment stages and rated their emotional response during deployment to both an open-ended speech task discussing deployment and reunion and a task remembering either a couple or individual memory.
The study examined whether wives’ attachment style at pre-deployment was associated with emotional responses to surveys and tasks during deployment and post-deployment.
Participants
The sample included 45 military wives with an average age of 30.96 years (SD = 7.51).
Of the 45 wives who completed pre-deployment measures, only a fraction completed deployment (n = 32) and post-deployment (n = 23) measures and tasks.
Participants identified as 80% White, 9% Latina, 4% Asian-American, and 2% Black.
Wives reported that their husbands were Service members from the Army (54%), Navy (21%), Air Force (21%), and Marines (5%), and most were Active Duty (91%).
Limitations
With the small sample size, results may not generalize to other military spouses.
The study had high attrition rates, and participants completing measures during all deployment phases may have differed from those who did not complete the study.
Conclusions discussed were somewhat broader than was appropriate given the study methods and collected data.
Avenues for Future Research
Examine the impact of military spouses’ attachment styles on long-term divorce rates
Conduct a similar study investigating the effects of both military spouses’ and Service members’ attachment styles, as well as interactions between styles within couples, during deployment
Explore factors that may protect insecurely attached spouses from marital difficulties during deployment
Focus
Multiple Branches
Target Population
Population Focus
Military Branch
Military Component
Abstract
Although much is written about the impact of deployment on nondeployed spouses (NDSs) and couple relationships, few empirical studies address this directly. Using attachment theory as a guiding framework, this study followed 32 NDSs across a military deployment. We examined the prospective association between NDSs’ attachment avoidance and their response to relational challenges (assessed using both correlational and experimental designs) during a deployment. Two weeks before deployment, NDSs provided self-reports of their attachment avoidance and relationship satisfaction. During the deployment, they provided stream-of-consciousness speech samples regarding (a) the deployment and (b) their anticipated reunion with their spouse: after each speech sample they reported on their subjective anxiety. Based on random assignment, NDSs then completed either an experimenter-led “personal” or “relational” memory savoring task, reporting on their emotional state before and after the task. Two weeks after the deployment, NDSs reported on their relationship satisfaction. Higher avoidance was associated with more frequent anxiety word use and higher self-reported anxiety when discussing the anticipated reunion. Avoidance moderated the association between savoring condition and postsavoring negative emotion, such that in the relational condition only, greater avoidance was related to more negative emotion. Postsavoring emotional state moderated the longitudinal association between predeployment attachment avoidance and postdeployment relationship satisfaction. Results are discussed in terms of their contribution to the literature on coping during attachment stressors as well as their implications for treatment with NDSs undergoing deployment.
Abstract Document
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