On the Rebound: Focusing on Someone New Helps Anxiously Attached Individuals Let Go of Ex-Partners
@article{Spielmann2009OnTR, title={On the Rebound: Focusing on Someone New Helps Anxiously Attached Individuals Let Go of Ex-Partners}, author={Stephanie S. Spielmann and Geoff Macdonald and Anne E Wilson}, journal={Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin}, year={2009}, volume={35}, pages={1382 - 1394} }
The present research demonstrates that focusing on someone new may help anxiously attached individuals overcome attachment to an ex-romantic partner, suggesting one possible motive behind so-called rebound relationships. A correlational study revealed that the previously demonstrated link between anxious attachment and longing for an ex-partner was disrupted when anxiously attached individuals had new romantic partners. Two experiments demonstrated that this detachment from an ex can be induced…
59 Citations
Conflicting pressures on romantic relationship commitment for anxiously attached individuals.
- PsychologyJournal of personality
- 2011
Findings suggest that anxiously attached individuals may be ambivalent about commitment, and satisfaction and worries about negative evaluation appear to exert downward pressure on commitment, counteracting the upward pressure that is exerted by factors such as relational dependency.
Anxious attachment and relationship processes: an interactionist perspective.
- PsychologyJournal of personality
- 2011
It is argued that research needs to more thoroughly investigate the conditions that should, or should not, activate attachment concerns and thus result in links between individual differences in attachment orientations and relationship processes.
Implicit and explicit attitudes toward ex‐partners differentially predict breakup adjustment
- Psychology
- 2011
The present research examined the hypothesis that positive implicit attitudes toward a former romantic partner might be detrimental to well-being as these attitudes lead to more suffering. In a…
Coping with Break-Ups: Rebound Relationships and Gender Socialization
- Psychology
- 2014
When serious romantic relationships are terminated, partners are faced with convoluted and complex challenges of detachment from their previous partner, negative feelings about the overall situation,…
Too fast, too soon? An empirical investigation into rebound relationships
- Psychology
- 2015
A “rebound relationship” is commonly understood as a relationship that is initiated shortly after a romantic breakup—before the feelings about the former relationship have been resolved. However,…
Ex Appeal
- Psychology
- 2013
Relationship research typically treats feelings about current romantic partners as independent of any lingering attachment to past partners. In contrast, the current study tests for an inverse…
Don’t Get Your Hopes Up
- PsychologyPersonality & social psychology bulletin
- 2013
The results suggest that avoidant individuals may circumvent attachment system activation by perceiving lower opportunity for connection when there is potential for intimacy.
Attachment Styles and Personal Growth following Romantic Breakups: The Mediating Roles of Distress, Rumination, and Tendency to Rebound
- PsychologyPloS one
- 2013
Findings suggest that anxious individuals’ hyperactivated breakup distress may act as a catalyst for personal growth by promoting the cognitive processing of breakup-related thoughts and emotions, whereas avoidant individuals” deactivated distress may inhibit personalrowth by suppressing this cognitive work.
Lack of Intimacy Prospectively Predicts Breakup
- PsychologySocial Psychological and Personality Science
- 2020
In this prospective longitudinal study, we examined whether and how lack of intimacy or meaningful connection to a romantic partner (i.e., low social reward) and concerns over negative evaluation by…
38 References
Breaking up is Hard to do, Especially for Strongly “Preoccupied” Lovers
- Psychology
- 2000
Abstract Is a relationship breakup harder on certain people? To address this question, the present study investigated the relationship of individuals’ attachment styles to various reported aspects of…
When thinking hurts: Attachment, rumination, and postrelationship adjustment
- Psychology
- 2007
The current study used an attachment framework to explore postrelationship rumination and adjustment. Young adults (N= 231) involved in a romantic relationship that (a) was of 3 months duration or…
The need to belong: desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation.
- PsychologyPsychological bulletin
- 1995
Existing evidence supports the hypothesis that the need to belong is a powerful, fundamental, and extremely pervasive motivation, and people form social attachments readily under most conditions and resist the dissolution of existing bonds.
Self-esteem and the quest for felt security: how perceived regard regulates attachment processes.
- PsychologyJournal of personality and social psychology
- 2000
It is proposed that personal feelings of self-esteem foster the level of confidence in a partner's regard critical for satisfying attachments, and a dependency regulation model is proposed, wherein felt security in a partners' perceived regard is suggested as a prime mechanism linking self- esteem to relational well-being.
Relationship-contingent self-esteem and the ups and downs of romantic relationships.
- PsychologyJournal of personality and social psychology
- 2008
Support is found for a mediation model in which the moderating role of RCSE largely occurred through momentary emotions, which in turn predicted momentary self-esteem.
The structure and process of emotional experience following nonmarital relationship dissolution: dynamic factor analyses of love, anger, and sadness.
- PsychologyEmotion
- 2006
Dynamic factor analysis was used to examine the structure and process of daily emotions in a sample of young adults following a romantic breakup, revealing that love/longing, sadness, and anger could be reliably distinguished as separate but correlated mood states in a trivariate model.
Attachment, exploration, and separation: illustrated by the behavior of one-year-olds in a strange situation.
- PsychologyChild development
- 1970
It is urged that the concepts of attachment and attachment behavior be kept broad enough to comprehend the spectrum of the findings of this range of studies.
The Relation between Current Impressions and Memories of Self and Dating Partners
- Psychology
- 1987
The purpose of the present study was to examine the association between naturally occurring changes in people's impressions and their recollections of themselves, close others, and their…
Correlates of Distress Following Heterosexual Relationship Dissolution
- Psychology
- 1993
The purpose of this study was to examine correlates of initial distress and current recovery among individuals who have experienced the breakup of a dating relationship, including factors associated…
Fanning old flames: emotional and cognitive effects of suppressing thoughts of a past relationship.
- PsychologyJournal of personality and social psychology
- 1995
Cognitive and electrodermal effects of suppressing thoughts of an old flame were examined in 2 experiments and participants who had suppressed thoughts of a no-longer-desired relationship were inclined to think aloud more about it afterward whereas those who suppressed thoughtsOf a still-desiring relationship did not show such a rebound but evidenced increased SCL.