Hazan and Shaver

Aim of Hazan and Shavers Experiment

Cindy Hazan and Philip Shaver’s research focused on developing and expanding attachment theory. So, before we dive into their study, let’s first look at attachment theory.

John Bowlby, the main founder of attachment theory, said that children need a secure attachment to a primary caregiver to feel safe and explore the world around them, which is essential for normal social and emotional development.

Bowlby (1969) proposed that a child’s attachment to their caregiver forms a mental representation of how relationships work. Mary Ainsworth (1978) later identified three attachment types in children: secure, insecure-resistant, and insecure-avoidant.

Early on, attachment theory only studied children. The attachment research only focused on children and was extremely successful in showing these attachment styles between a child and caregivers exist around the world.

Hazan and Shaver (1987) wanted to build upon this existing literature. They proposed that the attachment style that the baby had with their caregiver extended to adult romantic relationships.

Hazan and Shaver’s Continuity Hypothesis

An important term in Hazan and Shaver’s research was the continuity hypothesis.

The continuity hypothesis was a definition that Bowlby made when outlining his theory on attachment. Hazan and Shaver used the continuity hypothesis as a basis for their research.

Fig. 1. A secure attachment to your caregiver increases the likelihood of having secure relationships as an adult.

Hazan and Shaver 1987: Procedure

Hazan and Shaver’s main aim was to see if partners in adult romantic relationships also experience an attachment process like an infant and their caregiver.

To study this theory, they put together a love quiz. This love quiz ran in a local newspaper, the Rocky Mountain News, and asked people to send in their answers.

There were two parts to the quiz – the first looked at attachment style from the participants’ childhoods, and the second was a questionnaire about the participants’ beliefs on love.

Hazan and Shaver looked at the first 620 responses from their newspaper advertisement. The participants were 205 men and 415 women between the ages of 14 and 82. Of their sample size, 42% were married, and 31% were dating someone.

Hazan and Shaver used the first part of the love quiz to categorise the participants’ childhood attachment styles. They sorted the participants into Ainsworth’s attachment types – secure, insecure-resistant, and insecure-avoidant.

Hazan and Shaver 1987: Conclusion

Researchers classified 56% of participants as having secure adult attachments. They were more likely to have balanced and longer-lasting romantic relationships. They described their romantic relationships as positive, happy, friendly, and trusting.

19% of the participants were classified as insecure-resistant. They reported they experienced love as a compulsive commitment. They constantly worried about their partner’s love because they feared they would abandon them.

The final 25% of participants were insecure-avoidant people who feared closeness and did not believe they needed love to be happy.

Hazan and Shaver found that the prevalence (proportion of the general population) of the three attachment styles was the same in adulthood as in childhood. In addition, the results supported the concept that the internal working model has a lifelong effect.

The research was the first to support the continuity hypothesis that our attachment style in childhood predicts our romantic relationship style in adulthood.

Evaluation of Hazan and Shaver (1987)

Hazan and Shaver successfully studied what they intended to do. Their results show that a child’s attachment style in infancy impacts their attachment to a partner later in life. These results show a key expansion of the attachment field.

Fig. 2. Secure infant attachments can lead to secure adult relationships.

Numerous studies have happened since Hazan and Shaver’s research. Many of these studies also focus on attachment styles in adulthood or how they can evolve from childhood to adulthood.

The continuation of research in this field shows the impact that Hazan and Shaver had on attachment. While they were the first to study how infant attachment can predict and affect adult attachment styles in romantic relationships, they are not anymore. Their research opened the door for others to expand on this literature.

Hazan and Shaver’s Strengths and Weaknesses

Finally, let’s evaluate Hazan and Shaver’s 1987 strengths and weaknesses.

Hazan and Shaver: Strengths

Both men and women participated in the study. The study supports Bowlby’s theory that relationships in childhood influence relationships in adulthood (continuity hypothesis).

Feeney and Noller (1992) studied university students in relationships. They found that those with insecure-avoidant attachment styles were the most likely to engage in a breakup. However, attachment styles also changed as the relationship progressed to a firmer and more stable level.

Hazan and Shaver: Weaknesses

Hazan and Shaver’s study may have some problems regarding its validity. Their questionnaire depends on the honesty and realistic views of the respondents when disclosing relationship experiences with their parents in childhood.

Also, the accuracy of the answers could be a problem since they rely on the participants’ memories, i.e. retrospective information. As a result, these factors could compromise the study’s validity.

The researchers conducted the study with an exclusively American population and, therefore, could be ethnocentric. The study relied on self-report, so participants may not have been sincere because they wanted to sound socially desirable.

Additionally, the study population was limited to people who received the specific newspaper and who would respond to newspaper articles. This narrows down the participants to a very specific type of person.