Dyadic effects of attachment styles on marital satisfaction among Chinese couples: The mediating role of perceived partner responsiveness

Abstract

Insecure attachment styles, widely recognized as negative predictors in most Western samples, have been found to impair marital satisfaction for individuals high in attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance. However, Chinese culture is more tolerant of some features of attachment avoidance, which may lead to different implications of attachment styles for marital relationships. Besides, considering that responses of the partner play a vital role in the interaction of intimate relationships, the current study examined how attachment styles affect marital satisfaction through perceived partner responsiveness (PPR). This study is based on dyadic data from 668 Chinese couples across six marital stages, whose average length of marriage was 15.22 years (ranging from 0.03 to 67.57 years, SD = 13.88). Using the actor-partner interdependence model (APIMeM) to analyze these data, results suggested that: (a) individuals’ attachment anxiety was negatively associated with marital satisfaction for both themselves and their partner, and these associations were partially mediated by PPR; (b) PPR was a full mediator of the positive association between individuals' attachment avoidance and their own marital satisfaction; (c) wives’ PPR fully mediated the positive association between their attachment avoidance and their partner’s marital satisfaction, whereas husbands’ PPR partially mediated the positive association between their attachment avoidance and their partner’s marital satisfaction. These findings differ from previous studies based on Western samples and advance our understanding of how attachment styles are related to PPR and marital satisfaction in Chinese context, providing practical guidance on marital interactions for people with insecure attachment styles.