Insecure Attachment, Friendship Closeness, and Quality of Romantic Relationships

The current study explored the relationships among adult attachment, friendship closeness, and romantic relationship quality in emerging adulthood. A total of 229 Chinese emerging adults participated in the study and answered a series of self-report questionnaires regarding study variables. According to the results, we found that attachment avoidance had a stronger negative association with the quality of romantic relationships than attachment anxiety for Chinese young people. Moreover, moderation analysis demonstrated that higher friendship closeness would only alleviate the negative relation between avoidant attachment and romantic relationship quality. For Chinese avoidantly attached individuals, developing higher closeness in their friendships can be instrumental in protecting the quality of their romantic relationships from their avoidance attachment orientation. The findings advanced the understanding of attachment insecurity as well as its implications for emerging adult romantic relationships in the Chinese cultural context and further identified the protective role of friendship closeness in such association.