The Way We Were(n’t): Insecurity Bias in Memories of Adult Attachment Relationships

When people think about their former romantic relationships, they often recall themselves as having been insecure in those relationships. It is possible that those former relationships were, in fact, insecure. But it is also possible that people have a bias to see former relationships in a way that is more insecure than might be warranted. To evaluate these possibilities, in Study 1 we first demonstrated that people do, in fact, consider themselves more insecure in former versus current relationships. In Study 2 we analyzed prospective data from people who eventually would experience a breakup but had not yet. We found that their relationships were more insecure than relationships that did not end, suggesting that part of the difference is due to differences in insecurity while relationships were ongoing. In Study 3, we found that retrospective reports of former relationships were higher in attachment avoidance than should be expected based on prospective data on insecurity. Taken together, these findings suggest that people likely have a bias to see their former relationships as more avoidant than is warranted.