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Socio-demography and Attachment-styles of Married and Cohabiting Individuals in a Representative Sample

Cohabitation is becoming more prevalent in western society so that up to 7.5 million cohabiting couples were reported in the USA for the year 2010. The present study investigated whether the cohabitants’ attachment style might be one of the reasons for cohabitation gaining such popularity. Attachment styles as well as socio-demographic variables were compared in regard to the partnership status. A sample of 1,002 participants aged 18 to 60 were used as a representative sample (M = 43.5, SD = 10.9), of which 54% were female and 82% were married. The cohabitants were younger, more highly educated, and less frequently affiliated with a church. The cohabitants were more anxious-attached, especially those of a younger age. A one-point increase in value on the AAS anxiety scale almost doubled the possibility of cohabitation. Most of the variance can be explained by socio-demographic variables. However, based on these representative data, and after controlling for socio-demographic variables, attachment anxiety is still connected to cohabitation. The diverse results in the literature may be explained by differences in the socio-demographic characteristics of the sample.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa.de:bsz:14-qucosa-202654
Date10 October 2017
CreatorsPetrowski, Katja, Schurig, Susan, Schmutzer, Gabriele, Brähler, Elmar
ContributorsWorld Academic Publishing,
PublisherSaechsische Landesbibliothek- Staats- und Universitaetsbibliothek Dresden
Source SetsHochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typedoc-type:article
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceFrontiers in Psychological and Behavioral Science (April 2015), 4(2), ISSN: 2309-0138. S. 28-35.

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