Looking Beyond the Grade: Do Academic Performance and Motivations Predict Attachment in Close Relationships?

The ability to form healthy attachments with others has long been established to be important for mental health and well-being. The Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised Scale (Fraley et al., 2000) identifies two dimensions of attachment - model of self (attachment anxiety; degree to which an individual worries about rejection, abandonment, or unworthiness of love), and model of other (attachment avoidance; degree to which an individual fears emotional intimacy, suppresses dependency, and insists upon behavioral self-reliance). However, less is understood about whether the impact of attachment spills over in the academic lives of college students. The current study examines whether academic performance (GPA) and/or academic motivation (subscales in the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire; Pintrich et al., 1991) is predictive of attachment in college students (N = 112). Separate multiple linear regression analyses will be conducted to examine if GPA and/or subscales of academic motivation (intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, task value, control of learning beliefs, self-efficacy for learning and performance, and test anxiety) can predict attachment (model of self and model of other). Understanding whether academic performance and/or academic motivation is predictive of attachment styles is fundamental to understanding the value of social connections in academic settings. Such insights can aid institutions in tailoring guidance to help students reach their full academic potential. Keywords: attachment styles, academic performance, academic motivation