Human behavior and relationships are incredibly complex structures. Every individual is unique and is influenced by various factors in different ways. Examining relationships and human behavior within relationships is an interesting topic, one that can be explored through many different facets. Researchers can evaluate different personal qualities in individuals, such as attachment style, materialism, self-esteem, and self-worth to see how they all relate in social psychology.
The manner in which people form and maintain long-term relationships is called attachment style (Hazan and Shaver, 1987). Psychologists have developed several classification systems to identify and categorize different attachment styles, but the oldest and most popularized …show more content…
Some studies have explored how relationship security impacts materialism, one notable experiment reviewing how social support impacts the monetary value placed on objects (Clark et al., 2011). Participants made to feel more secure in their relationships assigned lower monetary value to material objects, indicating that secure, healthy social interactions could decrease materialism (Clark et al., 2011). Participants made to feel more insecure in their relationships, however, placed more value on objects, suggesting that lack of social support and security was compensated with material goods (Clark et al., 2011). While this study is informative, it is specific to one relationship of the participants and fails to generalize to a typical relationship formation pattern. There is no research that connects attachment style to …show more content…
For ease of manipulation, a quasi-experiment can be designed to determine which attachment styles correlate with materialistic values. By asking participants to complete a questionnaire that will evaluate attachment style and materialism, as well as the potential mediating variables of self-esteem and contingencies of self-worth, the relationship between attachment style and materialism can be analyzed properly. Based on what is known, it can be hypothesized that secure attachment style will correlate with low materialistic values, high self-esteem, and balanced contingencies of self-worth. It can also be hypothesized that anxious attachment style will correlate with high materialistic values, low self-esteem, and contingencies of self-worth based upon competition, appearance, and others’ views, and avoidant attachment style will correlate with high materialistic values, high self-esteem, and contingencies of self-worth based on academic
The manner in which people form and maintain long-term relationships is called attachment style (Hazan and Shaver, 1987). Psychologists have developed several classification systems to identify and categorize different attachment styles, but the oldest and most popularized …show more content…
Some studies have explored how relationship security impacts materialism, one notable experiment reviewing how social support impacts the monetary value placed on objects (Clark et al., 2011). Participants made to feel more secure in their relationships assigned lower monetary value to material objects, indicating that secure, healthy social interactions could decrease materialism (Clark et al., 2011). Participants made to feel more insecure in their relationships, however, placed more value on objects, suggesting that lack of social support and security was compensated with material goods (Clark et al., 2011). While this study is informative, it is specific to one relationship of the participants and fails to generalize to a typical relationship formation pattern. There is no research that connects attachment style to …show more content…
For ease of manipulation, a quasi-experiment can be designed to determine which attachment styles correlate with materialistic values. By asking participants to complete a questionnaire that will evaluate attachment style and materialism, as well as the potential mediating variables of self-esteem and contingencies of self-worth, the relationship between attachment style and materialism can be analyzed properly. Based on what is known, it can be hypothesized that secure attachment style will correlate with low materialistic values, high self-esteem, and balanced contingencies of self-worth. It can also be hypothesized that anxious attachment style will correlate with high materialistic values, low self-esteem, and contingencies of self-worth based upon competition, appearance, and others’ views, and avoidant attachment style will correlate with high materialistic values, high self-esteem, and contingencies of self-worth based on academic