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. 2023 Apr;40(4):1223-1249.
doi: 10.1177/02654075221127241. Epub 2022 Sep 16.

Positive illusions about dyadic perspective-taking as a moderator of the association between attachment insecurity and marital satisfaction

Richard A Rigby  1 , Rebecca J Cobb  1
Affiliations

Positive illusions about dyadic perspective-taking as a moderator of the association between attachment insecurity and marital satisfaction

Richard A Rigby et al. J Soc Pers Relat. 2023 Apr.

Abstract

Attachment insecurity (i.e., attachment anxiety or avoidance) puts people at risk for dissatisfying relationships. However, the dyadic regulation model of insecurity buffering suggests that an understanding and responsive partner may help insecure individuals to regulate emotions, thus improving couples' relationships. It may also be that perceiving partners as understanding and empathic, especially in an exaggeratedly positive way (i.e., positive illusions) will buffer insecurity. In 196 mixed-gender newlywed couples, we investigated whether spouses' positive illusions about partner's dyadic perspective-taking moderated the association between spouses' attachment insecurity and spouses' and partners' marital satisfaction over two years. Positive illusions generally predicted more satisfying relationships and attachment avoidance consistently predicted more dissatisfying relationships. There were also several instances where multilevel modeling indicated that positive illusions of dyadic perspective-taking buffered the negative effects of attachment avoidance on relationship satisfaction. However, there was also potentiation such that in two instances, positive illusions about dyadic perspective-taking strengthened the association between spouses' insecurity (husbands' attachment anxiety and wives' attachment avoidance) and subsequent marital dissatisfaction. In the moment, positive illusions about dyadic perspective-taking may allow spouses to feel happy in their relationship despite fear of emotional intimacy; however, positive illusions may not continue to buffer effects of insecurity on subsequent relationship satisfaction and may even be harmful in the face of insecurity.

Keywords: attachment insecurity; couples; marital satisfaction; perspective-taking; positive illusions; relationship satisfaction.

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Conflict of interest statement

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Husbands’ positive illusions about dyadic perspective-taking buffered the association between husbands’ attachment avoidance and husbands’ contemporaneous marital satisfaction. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Husbands’ positive illusions about dyadic perspective-taking buffered the association between husbands’ attachment avoidance and wives’ contemporaneous marital satisfaction. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Husbands’ positive illusions about dyadic perspective-taking buffered the association between husbands’ attachment avoidance and husbands’ subsequent marital satisfaction. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Husbands’ positive illusions about dyadic perspective-taking potentiated the association between husbands’ attachment anxiety and husbands’ subsequent marital satisfaction. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Wives’ positive illusions about dyadic perspective-taking potentiated the association between wives’ attachment avoidance and wives’ subsequent marital satisfaction. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
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