How Needing You Changes Me: The Influence of Attachment Anxiety on Self-concept Malleability in Romantic Relationships

Individuals' selves are malleable in romantic relationships. Specifically, individuals integrate characteristics of partners into their self-concepts to further closeness/intimacy goals (Aron, 2003 Aron, A. 2003. “Self and close relationships”. In Handbook of self and identity, Edited by: Leary, M. R. and Tangney, J. P. 442–461. New York, NY: Guilford Press. [Google Scholar]). Unfortunately, this malleability during relationships predicts self-concept change/confusion if a relationship ends (Slotter, Gardner, & Finkel, 2010 Slotter, E. B., Gardner, W. L. and Finkel, E. J. 2010. Who am “I” without “you”? The influence of romantic breakup on self-concept clarity. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36: 147–160. [Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). The current research investigated one potential moderator of these effects: attachment anxiety. Individuals who experience elevated attachment anxiety desire greater closeness/intimacy in their relationships than their less anxious counterparts. Thus, their self-concepts may be especially malleable in romantic relationships. Testing these hypotheses, three studies using undergraduate samples demonstrated that elevated attachment anxiety predicted individuals' selves being more malleable during romantic relationships (Studies 1 & 2) and being more susceptible to change/confusion should the relationship end (Studies 3A & 3B).