Relationship Quality
Early experiences with an unresponsive attachment figure will carry on into adulthood, leading lower qualities of close relationships in anxiously attached individuals. It is proposed that anxious attachment is associated with lesser relationship quality due to the over-immersion in the relationship on part of the anxiously attached individuals (Chung, 2014). Anxiously attached individuals are partner-focused in their relationships and rank intimacy and trust as a highly important factor in relationships, yet they have lower levels of trust in the relationship (Ren, Arriaga, & Mahan, 2017). This lack of trust is tied to increased fear of rejection and abandonment which lead to greater efforts to maintain the relationship. Many of these efforts can be extreme, intrusive, and lead to an inverse effect. Anxiously attached individuals are known to resort to hyperactivation and exaggerated strategies to keep a relationship in together (Garrison et al., 2014). One theory is that their hyperactive regulation strategies and emotional expression are used to