Today You Care, Tomorrow You Don’t: Differential Roles of Responsiveness Variability and Average Responsiveness in Romantic Attachment

Abstract

Past work has shown that perceived responsiveness is a key predictor of relational outcomes. However, this work has focused solely on average levels of responsiveness and never studied the role of responsiveness variability (consistency of responsiveness) in intimate relationships. The present study addressed this gap by investigating the long-held but scarcely tested tenet that responsiveness variability and average responsiveness play differential roles in romantic attachment. New romantic couples ( N = 151) reported partner-specific attachment anxiety and avoidance in six sessions. Every evening during the 3-week period in between the first two sessions, participants reported perceived partner responsiveness, allowing us to assess both average responsiveness and responsiveness variability. Our findings provided the first empirical evidence that responsiveness variability uniquely predicted increases in partner-specific attachment anxiety, whereas average responsiveness uniquely predicted decreases in partner-specific attachment avoidance. Average responsiveness and responsiveness variability continued to predict attachment orientations assessed about half a year later.