Attachment Style Moderates the Relationship Between Solitude and Marital Satisfaction: The Cross‐Partner Effects

• Published date: 01 December 2021
• Author: Shumin Zhang,Tianyuan Li
• Date: 01 December 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12576

S ZThe Education University of Hong Kong

T LThe Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen

Attachment Style Moderates the Relationship

Between Solitude and Marital Satisfaction:

The Cross-Partner Effects

Objective: Considering the interdependence

between close partners, the present study exam-

ined how the amount of one’s alone time was

related to both one’s own and the partner’s

relationship satisfaction in married couples.

It also tested how attachment style moderated

the within- and cross-partner associations

between the experience of solitude and marital

satisfaction.

Background: Solitude reects a status of being

alone without any active social interactions.

It can be related to either positive or nega-

tive affects depending on the circumstances. The

role that solitude plays in close relationships is

understudied in previous research.

Method: Using data from 105 married cou-

ples from mainland China, both actor and

partner effects and the moderating effect of

attachment style were tested using the mod-

erated actor–partner interdependence model

(MAPIM).

Results: Two cross-partner interactions

between solitude and attachment style on

husbands’ marital satisfaction were identied.

School of Humanities and Social Science, The Chinese

University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, 2001 Longxi-

ang Boulevard, Longgang District, Shenzhen, China

(litianyuan@cuhk.edu.cn or tianyuanl@gmail.com).

KeyWords: anxiety,attachment, avoidance, marital satisfac-

tion, solitude.

When wives reported high anxiety, the more

husbands spent alone time, the lower was their

reported marital satisfaction. When husbands

reported high avoidance, the more wives spent

time alone, the higher was their husbands

reported marital satisfaction. No signicant

association between solitude and wives’ marital

satisfaction was found.

ConclusionsandImplications: The results

reveal the intricate role that solitude plays in

marital relationships and highlight the impor-

tance to consider cross-partner effects when

studying dyadic interactions.

Human beings’ strong need for social ties has

been well illustrated by many theorists (e.g.,

Bowlby, 1969; Maslow, 1968) and supported

by an abundance of empirical evidence. A large

number of studies have conrmed that social

interaction and social support are critical to

individuals’ health, happiness, and well-being

(Siedlecki et al., 2013). Despite the impor-

tance of social relationships, individuals spend

plenty of time alone, especially after reaching

adulthood. People sometimes even proactively

choose to be alone (Chua & Koestner, 2008;

Hagemeyer et al., 2013). Solitude, dened as

the status of being alone without any social

interactions (Larson, 1990), is found to ben-

et individuals’ psychosocial regulation and

well-being (Lay et al., 2019). Research in

Family Relations 70 (December 2021): 1399–14111399

DOI:10.1111/fare.12576