Exploring the Relationship between Attachment Styles (Secure & Insecure – Ambivalent Type) and Resilience

Abstract

Background: The constructs of attachment styles and resilience act as complementary concepts. The base of one’s attachment style with one’s parents in childhood, determines whether one will be capable enough to recover quickly from the problems faced in adulthood. The current study is an attempt towards exploring the relationship between attachment styles, particularly, secure attachment style and insecure-ambivalent type attachment style, and resilience. This study also gives an account of the development and psychometric properties of the Attachment Style Scale – Secure and the Ambivalent type. Methods: Survey method was employed using convenient sampling and 127 participants in the age group of 18-29 years were given the Attachment Style Scale – Secure and the Ambivalent type and Resilience scale. Pearson’s correlation and Multiple regression was computed for analysis.  Results: The results were found to be in-line with the theoretical concepts of attachment styles and resilience. Resilience had a positive relationship with secure attachment style and a negative relationship with insecure-ambivalent type attachment style. Both the attachment styles were found to be significant predictors of resilience, with insecure – ambivalent type having a better predictive power. Conclusion: Both the attachment styles were significant predictors of resilience, where, secure attachment style shared a positive relationship with resilience, and insecure-ambivalent type attachment style shared a negative relationship with resilience.