Attachment, caregiving in couple relationships, and prosocial behavior in the wider world.

According to attachment theory, a sense of attachment security (confidence that others will be available and supportive when needed) facilitates the functioning of the caregiving behavioral system and the empathic provision of care to suffering others. In this article we review what has been learned during the last decade about attachment-related individual differences in caregiving within couple relationships and prosocial behavior in the wider world. We begin with a brief account of attachment theory and the dynamic interplay of the attachment and caregiving behavioral systems. We then review findings from correlational and experimental studies showing that attachment security has positive influences on noticing and reacting favorably to the suffering of romantic partners and strangers.

• Publication year

  2018

• Venue

  Current Opinion in Psychology

• Publication date

  2018-02-01

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.copsyc.2018.02.009PMID 29514115
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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