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What will I tell youabout my marriage? Therelationship betweenattachment andautobiographical memoryof married life
Yan Wang1, Dahua Wang1, Brooke C. Feeney2,and Fengzhan Li3
AbstractThe relationship between attachment orientation and the emotional and thematiccontent of autobiographical memory about marriage in later life was investigated. A totalof 242 older married adults received a quick recall interview to retrieve as many eventsas one could of what happened in his or her marital life. Each event was rated by theparticipant on its emotional valence, and its thematic content was coded by two ratersaccording to three themes: interaction mode of the couple, life domain, and inter-personal context. Results indicated that attachment security and attachment avoidance,but not attachment anxiety, predicted the emotional valence and relationship-relevantthematic contents (e.g., relationship-maintaining life domain and between-couple inter-personal context) of marital memories. Attachment by gender interactions revealed thatmen with lower avoidance retrieved more relationship-maintaining events, and womenwith higher anxiety or lower avoidance retrieved more between-couple events. Impli-cations of results are discussed.
KeywordsAttachment, autobiographical memory, content, marriage, older adult
1 Beijing Normal University, China2 Carnegie Mellon University, USA3 The Fourth Military Medical University, China
Corresponding author:
Dahua Wang, Institute of Developmental Psychology, Beijing Normal University, No. 19 Xinjiekouwai Street,
Beijing 100875, China.
Email: wangdahua@bnu.edu.cn
Journal of Social andPersonal Relationships
2017, Vol. 34(7) 963–983ª The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0265407516664417journals.sagepub.com/home/spr
J S P R
Attachment theory postulates that people select and interpret each situation met in life in
line with their internal working models (IWMs) of attachment (Bowlby, 1979, 1980).
That is, working models of attachment are presumed to influence the processing of social
information, such as how attachment-related information is perceived, stored, and
recalled. In support of this idea, several studies have demonstrated that attachment styles
influence the way people represent their autobiographical memory of attachment-related
experience (e.g., Kohn, Rholes, & Schmeichel, 2012; Sutin & Gillath, 2009). These prior
studies have focused on attachment effects on the accessibility, emotional valence, and
phenomenological characteristics (e.g., vividness, intensity) of autobiographical mem-
ories; however, there has been little systematic examination of the content of auto-
biographical memory and its association with attachment. The content of
autobiographical memory reflects what is remembered about life events (Levine, Svo-
boda, Hay, Winocur, & Moscovitch, 2002) and thus provides important information
about how individuals construct their past experiences. This study contributes to filling
this gap in the literature by providing an examination of both emotional and thematic
contents of autobiographical memory of married life.
Theoretical framework: IWMs of attachment and social information processing
According to attachment theory (Bowlby, 1969, 1973), through repeated interactions
with attachment figures, individuals develop cognitive representations of themselves and
others, which are referred to as ‘‘internal working models’’ (see also Collins & Allard,
2004). These representations may be activated beyond conscious awareness in future
social interactions, such that individuals filter social information through these working
models of the self and others (Bowlby, 1979; Collins & Read, 1990; Fraley, 2002).
Consequently, working models of attachment provide a rich theoretical framework for
understanding the content of autobiographical memories of marriage in adulthood.
Individual differences in IWMs of attachment (also referred to as one’s attachment
orientation) are usually assessed in terms of two dimensions of insecurity: attachment
anxiety and attachment avoidance (Fraley & Spieker, 2003). A number of studies have
revealed the association between attachment orientation and the processing of social
information. As higher avoidance reflects chronic attempts to deactivate the attachment
system (Edelstein & Gillath, 2008; Shaver & Mikulincer, 2002), avoidant individuals
typically drive their attention away from attachment information, such as attachment-
related words and emotion expression (Dewitte & De Houwer, 2008; Edelstein, 2006),
and suppress the display of emotion (Edelstein, Kean, & Chopik, 2012). Conversely,
anxious individuals usually show an oversensitivity to attachment information (Bailey,
Paret, Battista, & Xue, 2012; Fraley, Niedenthal, Marks, Brumbaugh, & Vicary, 2006)
and difficulties in suppressing negative thoughts (Gillath, Bunge, Shaver, Wendelken, &
Mikulincer, 2005), which reflects hyperactivation of the attachment system.
Recently, Dykas and Casssidy (2011) elaborated the mechanisms underlying the
construction of attachment-related experiences. IWMs of attachment are regarded as
schemas that assimilate attachment-related information into memory and generate
expectations regarding attachment figures’ likely responses in future relationship con-
texts (Bretherton & Munholland, 2008). Accordingly, insecure individuals process
964 Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 34(7)
attachment-relevant information in a negatively biased schematic manner; in contrast,
secure individuals process information in a more positive fashion. Previous studies have
shown that people tend to construct their relationship memories by assimilating new
information into their existing relational schema (Dykas, Ehrlich, & Cassidy, 2010;
Feeney & Cassidy, 2003; Simpson, Rholes, & Winterheld, 2009). Specifically, inse-
cure individuals (higher anxiety or avoidance) recall more negative attachment-
relevant information in memory tasks and view their negative memories with higher
emotional intensity (Dykas, Woodhouse, Jones, & Cassidy, 2014), while secure adults
recall more positive memories (Pereg & Mikulincer, 2004). In addition, secure indi-
viduals recall interactions with attachment figures as more positive over time, whereas
insecure individuals recall their interactions as more negative over time (Feeney &
Cassidy, 2003).
The role of attachment in autobiographical memory
Among various types of memory, autobiographical memory is particularly relevant to
attachment theory and likely to be strongly influenced by IWMs of attachment because it
involves memories of the self and of the self in relation to others (Conway, 1992). Hence,
it is not surprising that there have been efforts to theorize about and investigate the
connections between attachment and autobiographical memory. Loftus and Pickrell
(1995) proposed that autobiographical memories are created when people use external
social information and existing social–cognitive structures to encode and interpret
information about new experiences. Accordingly, IWMs as a kind of mental structure
should shape the generation of autobiographical memory (Dykas et al., 2014).
A few studies have focused on the way attachment shapes autobiographical memory
in terms of the accessibility and phenomenological features, including vividness,
coherence, and emotional intensity (Dykas et al., 2014; Oner & Gulgoz, 2015; Sutin &
Gillath, 2009). For example, secure individuals tend to regard their attachment figure as
a secure base, which enables them to generate emotional autobiographical memories
easily and to regulate negative affect effectively (Mikulincer & Orbach, 1995). How-
ever, adults with an avoidant attachment orientation have difficulty retrieving emotional
information (Edelstein, 2006). For example, they need more time to recall emotional
events that happened in childhood (Dykas et al., 2014), and they fail to retrieve the
details of attachment-related events (Fraley & Brumbaugh, 2007; Fraley, Garner, &
Shaver, 2000). Additionally, their autobiographical narratives lack coherence and
emotional intensity (Conway, Singer, & Tagini, 2004; Sutin & Gillath, 2009). In con-
trast, anxiously attached adults are more susceptible to negative autobiographical
memories and regulate their negative affect less efficiently (Gillath et al., 2005;
Mikulincer, Florian, Birnbaum, & Malishkevich, 2002).
Nonetheless, few studies have considered the content features of autobiographical
memory. However the content features are valuable in understanding the construction of
one’s experiences. For instance, McAdams, Hoffman, Day, and Mansfield (1996) found
that people frequently express the theme of communion/intimacy, such as love, in
autobiographical memory, and having rich memories on communion/intimacy could
enhance the feeling of closeness in one’s relationship (Alea & Bluck, 2007). Although
Wang et al. 965
thematic contents are thought to be important components of autobiographical memory
(Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000), examination of the contents of autobiographical
memory from an attachment theoretical perspective has been rarely explored (see Sutin
& Gillath, 2009, for an exception). Additionally, no prior investigation has examined this
among the older adult population.
Autobiographical memory in later life
Although there have been several studies on attachment-related autobiographical
memory (e.g., Kohn et al., 2012; Oner & Gulgoz, 2015), most of them focus on child-
hood and early adulthood (e.g., Chae, Goodman, & Edelstein, 2010; Sutin & Gillath,
2009), and it is unknown whether these findings generalize to later life. Previous
research on autobiographical memory in later life (without considering links with
attachment) has demonstrated that aging effects emerge in many aspects. First, older
adults tend to exhibit a preference for positive autobiographical memories (Kennedy,
Mather, & Carstensen, 2004). They are likely to retrieve more positive events than
negative ones (Berntsen & Rubin, 2002), especially ones that happened recently (Gong,
Fu, Wang, Franz, & Long, 2014). Second, older adults’ memories tend to be less specific
than those of younger adults (Piolino et al., 2010), and they focus more on semantic
information (general knowledge about the self and the world) rather than episodic details
(recollection of a specific personal event) in recalling memories (Levine et al., 2002).
Additionally, there is a gender difference in the specificity of autobiographical memory
among older adults, whereby older women’s memories are more specific and episodic
than men’s (Pillemer, Wink, DiDonato, & Sanborn, 2003). Finally, compared with
younger adults, older adults’ autobiographical memory is more coherent due to their
relatively clearer and more consistent sense of self (Rice & Pasupathi, 2010).
Given the age-related differences described above, the existing links between
attachment and autobiographical memory found in younger adults may not generalize
to the elderly. Thus, it is valuable to investigate the association between attachment
and autobiographical memory among older people, as Bowlby postulated that
attachment processes characterize individuals ‘‘from the cradle to the grave’’ (Bowlby,
1973, p. 208).
Current study
The current study focused on older adults and investigated the extent to which marital
attachment predicted the content of memory for events that happened between the couple
during marital life. A technique involving a quick recall interview was used to collect
participants’ memories of their marital life events. This method is widely used in
autobiographical memory research to investigate the memories that come to mind in a
spontaneous, unimpeded fashion (Dritschel, Williams, Baddeley, & Nimmo-Smith,
1992; Ivanoiu, Cooper, Shanks, & Venneri, 2006). Haggerty, Siefert, and Weinberger
(2010) were the first to use this task to investigate attachment effects on autobiographical
memory, as it was considered an appropriate method for assessing attachment’s orga-
nizational function on memory.
966 Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 34(7)
Two content aspects of autobiographical memory were assessed: emotional content
and thematic content. For emotional content, the self-reported valence of each event was
assessed. Based on the schema-driven function of attachment and available studies on
autobiographical memory cited above, we hypothesized (Hypothesis 1) that attachment
security would predict more positive and fewer negative autobiographical memories of
marriage in older adulthood, while attachment insecurity (anxiety and avoidance) would
predict fewer positive and more negative memories of marriage in older adulthood.
Regarding the thematic content of autobiographical memories of marriage, we
developed a comprehensive coding system. Although there have been some studies on
autobiographical memory involving theme-content coding, they typically focus only on
a single dimension, such as communal themes (e.g., caring-intimacy and love) (Alea &
Bluck, 2007). In this study, every retrieved event was coded on the following three
dimensions: the interaction mode of the couple (e.g., constructive, destructive), the life
domain in which the event occurred (e.g., daily activity, finance), and the interpersonal
context in which the event occurred (e.g., between couple and outside couple). Sample
responses for each coded dimension are provided in the method section.
First, the interaction mode of the couple was of interest because of its relevance to
attachment. For example, previous studies have shown that attachment orientation
affects one’s perception and memory of diverse aspects of couple interaction, such as
conflict (Beck, Pietromonaco, DeBuse, Powers, & Sayer, 2013; Cusimano & Riggs,
2013), support (Campbell, Simpson, Boldry, & Kashy, 2005; Collins & Feeney, 2004;
Kane et al., 2007), and separation (Gillath et al., 2005). Correspondingly, we hypothe-
sized (Hypothesis 2), regarding the schema-driven processing of couple interactions, that
attachment security would be strongly predictive of more memories of events repre-
senting constructive interactions (e.g., sharing happiness, sharing responsibility, and
support), while attachment insecurity (anxiety and avoidance) would be predictive of
more events representing destructive interactions (e.g., conflict and isolation).
Second, the life domain in which the event occurred was coded in order to examine whether
attachment influences one’s memory of particular life domains (e.g., health, daily activities,
and finances). Based on studies examining personal life stories (e.g., Rubin, Berntsen, &
Hutson, 2009) and existing measures of life events (Scully, Tosi, & Banning, 2000), we
included six categories in this coding system: health and security, daily activity, personal
development, entertainment, finance, and relationship-maintaining domains. According to
attachment theory (Mikulincer, Gillath, & Shaver, 2002), the attachment system is activated
in particular relationship contexts. Therefore, we hypothesized (Hypothesis 3.1) that
attachment differences would be shown only on events that are related to the
relationship-maintaining domain (e.g., marriage anniversary, expression of love, and
reunion); and specifically (Hypothesis 3.2) that attachment security and anxiety would
be positively associated with memories of relationship-maintaining events, while
attachment avoidance would be negatively associated with these memories.
Finally, the interpersonal context in which the event occurred was coded because of
the cultural specificity of this sample. Chinese culture is regarded as an interdependent
culture in which a broader social context is particularly important for an individual’s life
(Wang & Conway, 2004). For older Chinese people, it is common for them to live in an
extended family or stem family such that they usually maintain close contact with their
Wang et al. 967
children and relatives (Chen & Silverstein, 2000). As a result, they are expected to
retrieve information about others when recalling memories of marriage life regardless of
their attachment style. However, the attachment system is most influential in the pro-
cessing of attachment-related information (Dewitte, Koster, De Houwer, & Buysse,
2007). Thus, we hypothesized (Hypothesis 4.1) that not only between-couple events but
also outside-couple events would be reported by the participants; however, attachment
differences in autobiographical memories would be shown only on events that occurred
between the couple. Additionally, previous work has shown that highly avoidant indi-
viduals tend to draw their attention away from attachment-related information and
diminish its influence (Dewitte & De Houwer, 2008), while highly anxious individuals
direct their attention to and ruminate about attachment-related information (Bailey et al.,
2012; Oner & Gulgoz, 2015). Accordingly, we hypothesized (Hypothesis 4.2) that higher
attachment security and anxiety would be associated with more memories of events
occurring between the couple, while higher attachment avoidance would be associated
with fewer of such events.
We also considered gender differences in the associations between attachment
orientation and autobiographical memory content. Although Bowlby (1969, 1973)
proposed that attachment processes normatively apply to all individuals, gender dif-
ferences have been found in some studies. For example, attachment avoidance has been
associated with decreases in relationship satisfaction for both males and females,
whereas attachment anxiety has shown a negative correlation only with females’ reports
of relationship quality (Kane et al., 2007; Mondor, McDuff, Lussier, & Wright, 2011).
Gender has also moderated associations between attachment and sexual goals (Impett,
Gordon, & Strachman, 2008), caregiving sensitivity (Millings & Walsh, 2009), inter-
action with the opposite sex (Feeney, Noller, & Patty, 1993), and other relationship-
related motivations and behaviors. However, gender is rarely considered as a potentially
influential factor in the way attachment affects one’s cognition, and it is often treated as a
control variable. In the current study, we conducted exploratory analyses to examine the
potential interactive effects between gender and attachment orientation in predicting
both emotional and thematic content of autobiographical memory.
Method
Participants
The participants were part of a large project about marital attachment among older adults
in China. The project recruited a total of 697 married older adults aged over 60 years and
living in communities in Beijing, China. All were required to be currently in a marriage
of at least 20 years. From this sample, 242 individuals (mean age ¼ 68.35 + 5.32 years)
participated in the current study. A series of screening tests including the clock-drawing
test (CDT; Shulman, Shedletsky, & Silver, 1986) and the Chinese version of the 15-item
Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15; Burke, Roccaforte, & Wengel, 1991) were adopted
to exclude responses biased by cognitive impairment and emotional disorder. Four adults
who scored less than 3 on the CDT or greater than 8 on the GDS-15 were excluded from
data analysis. The final 238 participants (138 females) ranged in age from 60 to 85 (mean
968 Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 34(7)
age ¼ 67.93 + 5.23 years). They had received an average of 11.21 (SD ¼ 3.83) years of
education, and their average length of marriage was 43.38 (SD ¼ 6.64) years.
Procedure
Participants were interviewed in their own homes. After obtaining informed consent, the
study was administered in three steps. First, participants provided demographic infor-
mation and completed health questionnaires. Second, they recalled and reported marital
events during a quick recall interview. Finally, they completed the depression scale and
cognitive function assessment, followed by the marital attachment measure. The study
took approximately 40 min, and participants received ¥50 Yuan as compensation for
their time.
Measures
Autobiographical memory of marriage. A quick recall interview was used to investigate
the participants’ autobiographic memory of their marriage. There were three steps to
complete this measure. First, for the recall phase, each participant was given 2 min to
recall as many events as possible that happened between him/her and the spouse during
the marriage. Second, during the 5-min retrieval/reporting phase, each participant was
asked to orally report those events one by one in brief sentences, without providing
details about the event. All responses within the 5 min were tape-recorded. Third, for the
valance-evaluating phase, the events they reported were presented to the participants,
and they were asked to identify the emotional valence as one of three categories, that is,
positive, negative, or neutral. The average proportions of positive and negative events
retrieved by males and females are shown in Table 1.
Coding. Each event was coded in terms of three thematic contents of the autobiographical
memory: the mode of couple interaction in the event, the life domain in which the event
occurred, and the interpersonal context of the event. First, the interaction mode was
coded into one of the five categories: conflict, isolating, support, sharing happiness, and
sharing responsibility. Conflict and isolating were regarded as destructive modes and the
other three as constructive modes. A description and example for each interaction mode
is as follows: (1) conflict: negative interaction happened between the couple that could
impair the family functioning, such as arguments and disagreement (e.g., ‘‘I argued with
my husband because he did not take good care of our child’’); (2) isolating: a stressful
event happened to one while the other was not present or did not lend a hand, which
could be harmful to the family functioning (e.g., ‘‘I did not have my husband by me when
I was having our first baby’’); (3) support: one did something in order to help the other,
which is beneficial to the family functioning (e.g., ‘‘My wife took care of me when I was
in the hospital’’); (4) sharing happiness: positive things shared by the couple members
(e.g., ‘‘We traveled to Canada together’’); and (5) sharing responsibility: stressful things
coped with by the couple together that could improve the family functioning (e.g., ‘‘We
together looked for my demented mother after she got lost’’).
Wang et al. 969
Second, the life domain was coded into one of six categories: (1) health and security:
the event was about disease, caregiving, death, loss, and other topics related to health and
physical safety (e.g., ‘‘My husband carried me on his back to the hospital when I had a
bone fracture’’); (2) daily activity: the event was about housework and other typical
occurrences in daily life (e.g., ‘‘My wife cooked for me before I came home’’); (3)
personal development: the event was about a work issue, self-growth, children’s edu-
cation, and so on (e.g., ‘‘My wife completed her project successfully, and I was proud of
her’’); (4) finance: the event focused on properties and standards of material living (e.g.,
‘‘We bought a big house and decorated it together’’); (5) entertainment: the event
involved leisure activities (e.g., ‘‘We joined the tennis club together’’); and (6)
relationship-maintaining events: the event was about emotional communication,
reunion, marriage anniversary, giving birth, and so on (e.g., ‘‘My husband quarreled with
others when he was out of town, and then I wrote a letter to calm him down’’).
Finally, the interpersonal context was coded as occurring either outside the couple or
between the couple. When the event involved only the couple, it was coded as ‘‘between
couple’’ (e.g., ‘‘My husband made a dressing table for me’’). Otherwise, the event was
further coded into one of four ‘‘outside-couple’’ contexts, that is, peer involved (e.g.,
‘‘We argued because my husband lent money to his colleague without informing me’’),
parent involved (e.g., ‘‘We went back to his hometown to visit his father’’), children
Table 1. Attachment dimension scores and event ratios for autobiographical memories for malesand females.
Variable Dimension Category Male Female
Attachment Anxiety 2.60 + 1.21 2.43 + 1.00Avoidance 3.00 + 1.41 3.11 + 1.37Security 5.73 + 0.77 5.61 + 0.87
Emotional valence Positive 0.75 + 0.32 0.57 + 0.34Neutral 0.01 + 0.05 0.04 + 0.13Negative 0.25 + 0.32 0.39 + 0.34
Theme Interaction mode Conflict 0.16 + 0.27 0.20 + 0.29Sharing happiness 0.27 + 0.31 0.24 + 0.30Sharing responsibility 0.17 + 0.23 0.11 + 0.20Support 0.33 + 0.32 0.31 + 0.33Isolating 0.08 + 0.17 0.15 + 0.23
Life domain Health and security 0.20 + 0.25 0.26 + 0.27Daily activity 0.13 + 0.21 0.12 + 0.23Personal development 0.15 + 0.22 0.14 + 0.23Finance 0.11 + 0.21 0.08 + 0.18Entertainment 0.15 + 0.24 0.12 + 0.22Relationship maintaining 0.24 + 0.26 0.25 + 0.26
Interpersonal context Peers involved 0.02 + 0.09 0.03 + 0.12Parents involved 0.07 + 0.13 0.09 + 0.19Children involved 0.11 + 0.15 0.17 + 0.23Grandchildren involved 0.01 + 0.05 0.03 + 0.11Between couple 0.73 + 0.22 0.66 + 0.31
Note. SD ¼ standard deviation. Data are presented as M + SD.
970 Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 34(7)
involved (e.g., ‘‘We went to the U.S. to take care of our pregnant daughter’’), and
grandchildren involved (e.g., ‘‘Our first grandchild was born, and both of us loved her
very much’’).
The categorization of the autobiographical contents was coded independently by two
trained raters. The percentage of agreement between the two raters on the thematic
contents of interaction mode, life domain, and interpersonal context were 88, 85, and 97
for males, and 92, 79, and 94 for females, respectively. Additionally, the k values were
.84, .83, and .94 for males, and .89, .75, and .90 for females, respectively. Any incon-
sistent codes were discussed by the two raters until both reached an agreement. Finally,
we calculated the total number of events in each category for every participant.
A total of 1,027 events of autobiographical memory were collected for all the par-
ticipants. As the total number of retrieved events differed among the participants, we
calculated the event ratio for each category (i.e., the proportion of the number of events
in a specific category to the total number of events) for each participant and used these
ratios in subsequent data analyses. The means and standard deviations of the event ratio
within each memory category for males and females are presented in Table 1.
Marital attachment. Marital attachment was assessed using the Older Adults’ Marital
Attachment Scale (OAMAS; Wang, Yang, Wang, & Miller, 2015). This measurement
was the first to target marital attachment for older adults. Different from general two-
dimensional measures, the authors assessed three dimensions of attachment for older
people in China (Wang et al., 2015; Zhai, Li, Wei, & Wang, 2010). OAMAS contains 15
items assessing marital attachment anxiety (4 items, e.g., ‘‘my wife/husband only seems
to notice me when I’m angry’’), marital attachment avoidance (6 items, e.g., ‘‘I do not
like to stay too close to my wife/husband’’), and marital attachment security (5 items,
e.g., ‘‘It is easy for me to be affectionate with my wife/husband’’). Items were rated on a
Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). Previous
studies have shown that this measurement has good psychometric properties and is valid
to predict marital behaviors, such as spousal support and conflict (Wang, Wang, & Chen,
2012; Wang, Wang, Fu, Jiang, & Zhai, 2014). The Cronbach’s as for the subscales of
anxiety, avoidance, and security in this study are .69, .88, and .76 for males, and .72, .90,
and .83 for females, respectively. Means and standard deviations for each dimension for
males and females are shown in Table 1.
Results
Hypotheses were tested using a series of hierarchical multiple regression analyses. In the
first step, age and length of marriage were entered as control variables. In the second
step, the standardized scores of three attachment dimensions and gender (coded 1 for
female and �1 for male) were entered to test the hypotheses that attachment dimensions
would predict the contents of autobiographical memory. In the third step, the two-way
interactions of gender and each of attachment dimensions were entered to examine
whether gender moderates the relationship between attachment and the contents of
autobiographical memory.
Wang et al. 971
Attachment predicting the emotional content of retrieved events
To examine whether attachment predicts the emotional content of autobiographical
memory, the event ratios of positive and negative memories were used as depen-
dent variables in regression analyses. Consistent with predictions regarding the
schema-driven influence of attachment on memories of emotional content
(Hypothesis 1), results revealed that attachment security marginally predicted fewer
negative memories (b ¼ �.15, SE ¼ .03, t ¼ �1.92, p ¼ .057), and attachment
avoidance predicted fewer positive memories (b ¼ �.18, SE ¼ .03, t ¼ �2.28,
p ¼ .024) and more negative memories (b ¼ .17, SE ¼ .03, t ¼ 2.06, p ¼ .040).
However, attachment anxiety was not significantly associated with the emotional
content of autobiographical memories (ps > .560). Additionally, the tests of
interactions between the attachment dimensions and gender were not significant
(ps > .076), indicating that gender did not moderate attachment effects on the
emotional content of autobiographical memory.
Attachment predicting the thematic content of retrieved events
First, hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted predicting the interaction
mode of the couple represented in the autobiographical memories (Hypothesis 2). The
ratios of composite variables representing constructive interaction (averaged ratios for
support, sharing happiness, and sharing responsibility) and destructive interaction
(averaged ratios for conflict and isolation) were used as dependent variables. The results
revealed that avoidance was associated with more memories of destructive interaction
(b ¼ .18, SE ¼ .03, t ¼ 2.26, p ¼ .025) and fewer memories of constructive interaction
(b ¼ �.18, SE ¼ .03, t ¼ �2.26, p ¼ .025). Additional analyses considering each
interaction mode individually indicated that avoidance was associated with more
memories of between-couple conflict (b ¼ .26, SE ¼ .02, t ¼ 3.17, p ¼ .002). No other
attachment effects were significant for avoidance, anxiety, or security, and there were no
significant interactions between attachment and gender (ps > .112).
Second, a series of hierarchical multiple regressions were conducted predicting the
life domains of the autobiographical memories (health and security, daily activity,
personal development, finance, entertainment, and relationship maintaining). Consistent
with our hypotheses (Hypothesis 3.1), attachment orientation was not associated with
memories about any other life domain (ps > .063) except for relationship maintaining.
Specifically, consistent with Hypothesis 3.2, individuals with higher levels of attachment
security were more likely to retrieve relationship-maintaining memories (b ¼ .18,
SE ¼ .02, t ¼ 2.19, p ¼ .030). However, the anxiety and avoidance dimensions did not
significantly predict relationship-maintaining memories (ps > .224). Additionally, there
was a significant interaction between avoidance and gender predicting relationship-
maintaining memories (b ¼ .17, SE ¼ .02, t ¼ 2.00, p ¼ .046). Simple slope tests
revealed that, for males, lower attachment avoidance was marginally associated with
more relationship-maintaining memories (b ¼ �.24, SE ¼ .03, t ¼ �1.85, p ¼ .065);
however, there was no association between avoidance and relationship-maintaining
memories for females (b ¼ .10, SE ¼ .03, t ¼ 0.91, p ¼ .364; Figure 1).
972 Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 34(7)
Finally, a series of hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted pre-
dicting the interpersonal context of the autobiographical memory (between couple,
parent involved, peer involved, children involved, and grandchildren involved). As we
expected, both between-couple and outside-couple events were reported by participants.
Among the total events, 30.96% are events involving people outside the couple. How-
ever, significant associations were found not only between attachment and memories for
between-couple events but also between attachment and memories for events involving
children, which partly supports Hypothesis 4.1. Specifically, individuals with higher
attachment avoidance retrieved fewer events that happened between the couple
(b ¼ �.19, SE ¼ .02, t ¼ �2.25, p ¼ .025; Hypothesis 4.2) but more events involving
their children (b ¼ .23, SE ¼ .02, t ¼ 2.78, p ¼ .006). However, inconsistent with the
hypothesis that greater attachment security and anxiety would predict more memories of
between-couple events (Hypothesis 4.2), no significant associations were found (ps >
.228). Instead, the results showed a significant interaction between attachment insecurity
and gender predicting the memory of events that occurred between the couple (Avoid-
ance � Gender: b ¼ �.29, SE ¼ .02, t ¼ �2.64, p ¼ .009; Anxiety � Gender: b ¼ .29,
SE ¼ .02, t ¼ 2.56, p ¼ .011). Specifically, simple slope tests showed that females with
higher avoidance (b ¼ �.38, SE ¼ .03, t ¼ �3.50, p ¼ .001; Figure 2) or lower anxiety
(b ¼ .30, SE ¼ .03, t ¼ 2.61, p ¼ .010; Figure 3) recalled the fewest between-couple
events, but there was no association between attachment and recall of between-couple
events for males (avoidance: b ¼ .07, SE ¼ .04, t ¼ 0.53, p ¼ .594, Figure 2; anxiety:
b ¼ �.11, SE ¼ .03, t ¼ �0.98, p ¼ .329, Figure 3).
Discussion
The purpose of this investigation was to examine the links between attachment orien-
tation and the emotional and thematic content of autobiographical memory about
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
Low avoidance (–1 SD) High avoidance (+1 SD)
Rat
io o
f re
latio
nshi
p-m
aint
aini
ng e
vent
s
Female
Male
Figure 1. The interaction between avoidance and gender predicting relationship-maintainingautobiographical memories.
Wang et al. 973
marriage in later life. Results revealed significant associations between attachment
orientation and the emotional valence of marital autobiographical memories as well as
certain aspects of the thematic content of marital autobiographical memories of older
adults. The findings followed two main patterns. First, attachment security and
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
Low avoidance (–1 SD) High avoidance (+1 SD)
Rat
io o
f be
twee
n co
uple
eve
nts
Female
Male
Figure 2. The interaction between avoidance and gender predicting autobiographical memory forbetween-couple events.
0
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0.6
0.7
0.8
0.9
Low anxiety (–1 SD) High anxiety (+1 SD)
Rat
io o
f be
twee
n co
uple
eve
nts
Female
Male
Figure 3. The interaction between anxiety and gender predicting autobiographical memory forbetween-couple events.
974 Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 34(7)
avoidance, but not attachment anxiety, significantly predicted the emotional and the-
matic contents of marital memories (without considering moderation by gender). Sec-
ond, with regard to the thematic content of marital memories, relationship-related
aspects of the autobiographical memories, such as interaction mode of the couple,
relationship-maintaining life domain, and between-couple interpersonal context, were
more likely to be predicted by attachment orientation. In addition, results revealed some
interesting effects in which gender moderated the link between attachment orientation
and the content of marital memory in older adulthood. Next, we discuss findings
regarding links between attachment orientation and the emotional and thematic content
of autobiographical memory of marriage, followed by a discussion of gender effects.
Attachment orientation predicting the content of autobiographical memoryof marital life
As expected, the current study found that attachment predicts the emotional content (the
valance) and some aspects of thematic content of autobiographical memories. Regarding
the emotional content, more avoidant adults retrieved more negative and fewer positive
autobiographical events; in contrast, more secure adults tended to retrieve fewer negative
memories. The significant role attachment plays in emotional information processing has
been documented in previous work. According to attachment theory and research
(Bretherton & Munholland, 2008), secure individuals holding a positive view of others
tend to perceive and process relationship-related information with a positivity bias,
whereas avoidant adults (who hold more negative representations of others) have a
negative filter for processing and encoding social information. The current results
showing that attachment orientation predicts the emotional content of autobiographical
memories provide support for this attachment-schematic information processing
hypothesis (Dykas & Cassidy, 2011). It may be argued that the results concerning
avoidant attachment in this study is inconsistent with views that avoidant adults tend to
adopt a deactivating strategy for information processing, such as inhibiting attention to
negative information (Edelstein & Gillath, 2008; Mikulincer et al., 2002) and having
difficulty in accessing negative memories in cued recall tasks (e.g., Dykas et al., 2014).
However, recent work suggests that both schema-consistent processing and deactivation
strategies can occur simultaneously. Haggerty et al. (2010) found that avoidant indi-
viduals tend to retrieve more negative attachment memories (schema-driven processing)
but rate them as low in emotional intensity (a deactivating strategy). In addition,
attachment avoidance has been associated with both low accuracy in detecting
attachment-related information and a highly negative schematic bias in information
processing (Overall, Fletcher, Simpson, & Fillo, 2015).
With regard to the thematic content of autobiographical memory, two major findings
can be drawn as supportive evidence for our hypotheses. First, consistent with previous
findings (e.g., Simpson et al., 2009), this study revealed that attachment predicted
contents of autobiographical memory that were relationship relevant, including the
couple interaction mode reflected in the events (constructive/destructive interactions),
the specific life domain of relationship maintaining (e.g., marriage anniversary), and
events with a between-couple interpersonal context. These findings support the idea that
Wang et al. 975
the attachment system is activated most strongly in attachment-relevant contexts and is
most influential in predicting attachment-relevant content of autobiographical memories
(Gillath, Giesbrecht, & Shaver, 2009).
Second, it is noteworthy that avoidance was the attachment dimension that was most
predictive of the thematic content of marital autobiographical memories (as it was for
emotional content as well). For example, avoidance was negatively associated with
memories of constructive interaction and with memories of between-couple events. This
may reflect that avoidant individuals actually have experienced fewer constructive
interactions and fewer between-couple events to recall, and/or it may reflect the biased
social information processing and deactivating strategies discussed above. It is also
interesting to note that avoidant attachment might be exceptionally predictive of the
autobiographical memories of older adults, as research shows that people become less
anxious but potentially more avoidant as they age (Cusimano & Riggs, 2013). This is
consistent with research that has found stronger effects of attachment avoidance on
social information processing among older than younger adults (e.g., Kafetsios &
Sideridis, 2006).
Consistent with the idea that older adults may become less anxious over time, the
mean levels for attachment anxiety were lower than those for avoidance in this sample
(see Table 1). The relatively lower mean level of attachment anxiety in the current
sample may have contributed to the absence of main effects for anxiety in predicting
autobiographical memory. However, because there was still variability in levels of
anxious attachment in this sample, another possible explanation may lie in the ambig-
uous working models that anxiously attached adults hold. According to attachment
theory (Bowlby, 1979; Hazan & Shaver, 1987), these individuals have had positive
experiences with attachment figures; however, their attachment figures have not been
consistently responsive. Consequently, they build their working models based on both
positive and negative attachment experiences. Reflecting these ambivalent representa-
tions, empirical studies have shown that anxious individuals are ambivalent in their
responses to attachment-related information. For example, they show similarly high
arousal to both positive and negative attachment-related information (Vrticka, Sander, &
Vuilleumier, 2012), although sometimes they show greater brain activation only to
negative attachment information (e.g., Zilber, Goldstein, & Mikulincer, 2007), and they
have been simultaneously receptive to and rejecting of their spouse’s support behavior
(Feeney & Thrush, 2010). Thus, the ambivalence of anxious adults may have obscured
effects on autobiographical memory (although there was one effect of attachment
anxiety moderated by gender that we discuss below).
Finally, consistent with the attachment-schematic information processing hypothesis
(Dykas & Cassidy, 2011), among a variety of themes for couple interaction mode (i.e.,
support, conflict, isolating, sharing happiness, and sharing responsibility), avoidance
predicted fewer memories of constructive interaction (a composite of support, sharing
happiness, and sharing responsibility) and greater memories of destructive interaction (a
composite of conflict and isolating). In addition, when examining the themes indivi-
dually, there was only a significant association between attachment avoidance and
greater memories of conflict. These results suggest that (a) avoidant individuals are
particularly negatively biased in their autobiographical memories of marriage, and/or (b)
976 Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 34(7)
avoidant individuals may in fact experience a greater number of negative interactions in
their marriages, thus leading them to weight these interactions heavily on their auto-
biographical memories. It is particularly interesting that avoidant individuals have
greater memories of conflict in their marriages. Given prior research showing that the
attachment system tends to be activated most strongly under stressful/threatening cir-
cumstances (Mikulincer et al., 2002), it makes sense that conflict situations would be
particularly salient/memorable for avoidant individuals who may be especially threat-
ened by these interpersonal situations (and who also may be most likely to experience
them). This is consistent with research showing that marital conflict is a common
interpersonal threat and that the experience of it is likely to be influenced by IWMs of
attachment (Simpson, Rholes, & Phillips, 1996). Additionally, the strong links between
avoidance and autobiographical memories of negative interaction behaviors in the
marriage (particularly conflict) may reflect the negative model of others that avoidant
individuals hold. These findings are also consistent with previous research showing that
avoidant individuals construct their memory about conflict with attachment figures in a
more negative way (Feeney & Cassidy, 2003; Simpson et al., 2009).
Attachment � gender effects on the content of autobiographical memoryof marital life
This investigation revealed that gender was a significant moderator of the relationship
between attachment and some of the contents of marital memories. First, a significant
interaction between attachment and gender was found in predicting autobiographical
memories for relationship-maintaining events. Specifically, men (but not women) with
higher attachment avoidance showed the tendency to report fewer relationship-
maintaining events. One explanation for this may be that women tend to be more rela-
tionship oriented than men. For instance, Alea and Bluck (2007) demonstrated that women
are intimacy oriented and that they are likely to use autobiographical memories of rela-
tional events as a tool to achieve their intimacy goal. In addition, Reis (1998) argued that
females are more likely than males to pursue intimacy. Thus, it is understandable that
avoidant men, but not avoidant women, tended to recall fewer relationship-maintaining
autobiographical events.
Second, we found that females (but not males) with lower avoidance or higher anxiety were
more likely to retrieve between-couple autobiographical events. These results are consistent
with previous research (Shaver & Mikulincer, 2002) showing that avoidant individuals
attempt to distance themselves from close relationships, while anxious individuals are pre-
occupied by close relationships. However, these results emerged only for women in this study
and suggest that anxious women are particularly focused on between-couple issues. The
absence of this effect among males is noteworthy and requires further examination.
Strengths, limitations, and future directions
This study has several strengths. First, it is the first study to examine the extent to which
attachment orientation predicts the content of autobiographical memory in older adult-
hood. Older adults with a long marital life were selected as the current sample. Because
Wang et al. 977
they have a large repertoire of lifetime memories, they were considered to be an ideal
sample for investigating how attachment influences the emotional valence and thematic
content of autobiographical memories. An additional strength of this study is that it
includes a multidimensional perspective in assessing autobiographical memory content.
Concerning limitations of this study, readers should be cautious when generalizing
the findings to other contexts or samples. The participants in this study were Chinese
older adults who had been married for approximately 40 years. These characteristics may
result in unique responses on both attachment measures and assessments of auto-
biographical memory. First, old-age and long-term marriage may contribute to a positive
bias in recalling relationship-related memories (Hatch & Bulcroft, 2004; Kennedy et al.,
2004). Second, the specific cultural context of the current sample may yield attachment
orientations that differ in some ways (e.g., in the degree of avoidant and anxious
attachment represented) compared to Western adults (Wei, Russell, Mallinckrodt, &
Zakalik, 2004). Thus, it is unclear whether the present results would generalize to
Western older adults with shorter marriages. In addition, although the findings support
theoretical predictions, they also raise additional questions. For example, it will be
important to understand the null effects of attachment anxiety on autobiographical
memory, to gain greater insight into the role of working models of attachment in
information processing. In the current study, we reasoned that the null effects for anxiety
might be due to an age-related effect or to the ambivalent nature of anxious individuals.
However, another possibility may involve the quick recall task, in which participants
were not permitted to engage in deep information processing. The nature of the recall
task might have mitigated the effects of attachment anxiety on the contents of auto-
biographical memories.
In future work, further efforts could be invested into examining attachment effects on
autobiographical memories using a deep recall task and adopting some narrative anal-
yses, which may provide a more vivid picture of the role of attachment orientation on the
construction of an individual’s autobiographical experiences. Additionally, it will be
valuable to take a dyadic perspective, namely, taking partner effects into account, when
examining attachment effects on autobiographical memory. It is arguable that the
attachment orientation of each member of the couple will interact to predict the auto-
biographical memories of each partner. Finally, a cross-cultural perspective will be
important to consider in future research examining attachment effects on auto-
biographical memory. For example, more research must consider the cross-cultural
validity and reliability of attachment measurement. In addition, future research must
consider that the content of autobiographical memories of marital life embedded in
different cultures may vary. For example, in individualistic cultures such as the U.S.,
fewer outsiders might be included in marital autobiographical memories, and thus dif-
ferent patterns of association with attachment orientation may be revealed.
Conclusion
In summary, results from the current study suggest that attachment plays an important
role in shaping one’s autobiographical memory of marital life among older adults.
Attachment avoidance, and to a lesser extent attachment security, were more predictive
978 Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 34(7)
of the content of autobiographical memory than attachment anxiety. Results also indi-
cated that, although attachment is a universal phenomenon, some of its effect on auto-
biographical memory may differ for males and females. This research provides a
foundation for future work that considers attachment influences on autobiographical
memories across the life span and across cultures.
Authors’ note
This paper was part of a conference presentation: Poster presentation at the GSA’s 2015 Annual
Scientific Meeting, Orlando, FL, USA.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/
or publication of this article: This research was supported by the Project of Key Research Base for
Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ministry of Education of China (13JJD190001).
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