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Article history:
Available online 13 November 2012
Keywords:
Attachment
Social skills
Social network
Online
Facebook
a b s t r a c t
Research suggests that online communication may benet those high in social anxiety. The current study
examined Facebook use from the perspective of adult attachment theory, exploring relationships
between attachment anxiety and avoidance and Facebook use. Social skills have been found to be related
to attachment style and internet use thus we also examined the role of these skills. A diverse sample of
adult participants (N = 617; 50.1% female) completed a self report questionnaire measuring attachment
dimensions, social skills, and Facebook use and experience. In line with predictions grounded in attachment theory, we found that individuals with high attachment anxiety used Facebook more frequently,
were more likely to use it when feeling negative emotions and were more concerned about how others
perceived them on Facebook. High attachment avoidance was related to less Facebook use, less openness
and less positive attitudes towards Facebook. These relationships remained when social skills were controlled. These results suggest that Facebook may serve attachment functions and provide a basis for
understanding how online communication may be related to attachment styles.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
With the growth in popularity of social networking sites (SNSs)
such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter, new forms of social
interaction have emerged that differ in important ways from the
ofine interactions more typically studied by social psychologists.
Over a decade ago McKenna and Bargh (2000) highlighted four
characteristics that differentiate online from ofine social interactions: increased anonymity, reduced importance of physical
appearance, reduced barriers due to geographical distance, and
greater control over the time and pace of interactions. These
characteristics, McKenna and Bargh speculated, could make online
social interactions particularly appealing to certain types of people,
such as those suffering from social anxieties that handicap them in
ofine interactions. In the past few years considerable research has
investigated the psychological characteristics of internet users,
particularly SNS users, with a focus on the personality correlates
and psychological outcomes of internet use (Nadkarni & Hofmann,
2012). Conrming McKenna and Barghs suspicions, there is
growing evidence that social anxiety may play an important role
in the use of SNSs (Buote, Wood, & Pratt, 2009; Caplan, 2007).
In the current study, we explored the use of Facebook from the
perspective of adult attachment theory, examining whether there
exist relationships between attachment style and Facebook use.
A number of characteristic features of Facebook (and other
SNSs), including maintaining geographically distant relationships,
Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 1904 433190; fax: +44 1904 433181.
E-mail address: julian.oldmeadow@psychology.york.ac.uk (J.A. Oldmeadow).
0747-5632/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2012.10.006
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2.2. Measures
2.2.1. Experiences in Close Relationships Scale (ECR; Brennan et al.,
1998)
The ECR is a 36-item scale that measures the two major dimensions of attachment (anxiety and avoidance) in the context of close
adult relationships. An example item measuring attachment anxiety is I need a lot of reassurance that close relationship partners
really care about me. An example of an item measuring attachment avoidance is I get uncomfortable when someone wants to
be very close to me. Across hundreds of studies the scale has
shown excellent reliability and validity, and is the scale of choice
amongst leading adult attachment researchers (see Mikulincer &
Shaver, 2007). The main reason we chose this scale for the current
study is that it yields two separate dimension scores for each participant, rather than assigning them to an attachment style category (cf. Bartholomew & Horowitz, 1991). It is therefore an
appropriate measure for assessing linear relationships between
attachment dimensions, social skills, and Facebook use. In the current study Cronbachs alphas for the anxiety and avoidance subscales were .84 and .91 respectively, and the correlation between
the two was .246 (p < .001).
2.2.2. Social Skills Inventory (SSI; Riggio, 1986)
The standard SSI uses 90 items to measure six subcomponents
of social skills, three each in emotional and social domains: Emotional Expressivity (EE), Emotional Sensitivity (ES), Emotional Control (EC), Social Expressivity (SE), Social Sensitivity (SS), and Social
Control (SC). The emotional and social components assess non-verbal and verbal dimensions of social ability respectively. The
expressivity subscales focus on ones ability to communicate, both
verbally (SE) and non-verbally (EE); the sensitivity subscales assess
ones ability to interpret verbal (SS) and non-verbal (SE) communication; and the control subscales measure the ability to control and
regulate non-verbal (EC) and verbal (SC) displays (Riggio, 1989).
Because of the length of the SSI and the overall size of the online
questionnaire used in this study, we created an abridged version
of the SSI by choosing four items to measure each of the six subscales (i.e. 24 items in total; see Appendix A). These items were selected by identifying the four highest loading items from a
previous study in which we administered the full SSI to over 600
participants. Within the current sample a principle components
factor analysis with oblique rotation carried out on these 24 items
returned six factors with eigenvalues above 1, with the intended
four items loading separately on each factor. Cronbachs alphas
for the subscales were all above .8, except for emotional expressivity (alpha = .53). Correlations between subscales ranged from
.007 to .482. Thus, the four items used for each subcomponent
appeared to capture distinct and largely reliable aspects of social
skills, indicating they constituted an adequate measure of the intended constructs. Factor scores were computed for each subscale
for use in subsequent analyses.
2.2.3. Facebook usage and experience
A range of questions were asked about participants usage and
experience with Facebook. These questions were devised by the
authors, drawing on previous research (Farahani, Aghamohamadi,
Kazemi, Bakhtiarvand, & Ansari, 2011; Hughes, Rowe, Batey, &
Lee, 2012; Moore & McElroy, 2012; Orr et al., 2009). Questions
focusing on Facebook usage included: How often do you use
Facebook? (1 = Less than once a month; 7 = daily); Think about
the last day you logged onto Facebook. In total, how long did you
spend logged onto Facebook? (1 = about 15 min or less; 7 = 3 h
or more); How often do you post updates on Facebook?
(1 = Never; 7 = 45 times a week); How often do you change your
Facebook prole picture? (1 = Never; 7 = Daily); and Who do you
Table 1
Partial correlations (controlling for gender) between attachment style and social
skills.
Social skill
Social expressivity
Social sensitivity
Social control
Emotional expressivity
Emotional sensitivity
Emotional control
**
*
p < .001.
p < .05.
Anxiety
0.119*
0.443**
0.096*
0.209**
0.002
0.338**
Avoidance
0.385**
0.061
0.241**
0.484**
0.045
0.008
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Table 2
Partial correlations (controlling for gender) between components of Facebook usage and experience, and attachment and social skills.
Usage
**
*
Comfort seeking
Evaluation concern
Attachment
Openness
Positivity
Attachment
Anxiety
Avoidance
0.149**
0.008
0.401**
0.151**
0.378**
0.156**
0.087
0.083*
0.047
0.193**
0.066
0.141*
Social skills
EE
ES
EC
SE
SS
SC
0.001
0.008
0.107
0.157**
0.104*
0.084*
0.182**
0.019
0.202**
0.027
0.223**
0.0001
0.096*
0.055
0.157**
0.026
0.407**
0.052
0.094*
0.056
0.073
0.118*
0.136*
0.028
0.076
0.048
0.004
0.123*
0.059
0.169**
0.062
0.088*
0.032
0.128*
0.038
0.113*
p < .001.
p < .05.
Table 3
R2 and standardized beta weights for individual predictors at steps 2 and 3 in the model. Effects of gender were partialled out in step 1 and are not reported here.
Step 2
Step 3
Anxiety
Avoidance
Anxiety
Avoidance
EE
ES
EC
SE
SS
SC
R2 change
Total R2
**
*
Usage
Comfort seeking
Evaluation concern
Attachment
Openness
Positivity
.151**
0.044
.142*
0.046
0.024
0.048
-0.04
.179**
0.009
0.032
.034*
.061**
.387**
0.06
.343**
0.068
.097*
-0.07
-0.063
.094*
0.037
0.031
.025*
.194**
.369**
0.066
.225**
.175**
0.039
.114*
0.016
0.034
.334
.111*
.103**
.262**
.107*
.111*
0.065
0.013
0.09
0.073
0.014
0.119*
0.103*
0.022
.029*
.050**
0.009
.186**
0.030
0.154*
0.011
0.008
0.012
0.010
0.062
.131*
0.019
.054**
0.085
.165**
.108*
.122*
0.024
0.069
0.000
0.060
0.035
0.050
0.014
.045*
p < .001.
p < .05.
or emotions [reversed]) was negatively associated with both comfort seeking and evaluation concern. Those high in emotional
expressivity were less likely to use Facebook when feeling negative
emotions and less concerned with how they appear to others on
Facebook.
There were further associations between social skills and openness, positivity, and attachment to Facebook. In particular, those
high in social expressivity (e.g. I love to socialize) were more attached to their Facebook prole and more open and positive about
it than those low in social expressivity. Those high in social control
(e.g. I am often chosen to be the leader of a group) were also
more open and positive about their Facebook proles than those
lower in social control.
3.3. Regression analyses
Hierarchical regression analyses assessed the contributions of
attachment dimensions and social skills to explaining each aspect
of Facebook usage and experience. In each model gender (dummy
coded) was entered rst to partial out gender effects. In the second
step, attachment anxiety and avoidance were entered. The six social skills subscales were entered in step 3. The total amount of
variance explained in the nal model and beta weights of each
individual predictor are shown in Table 3. In each case the attachment dimensions explained a signicant proportion of variance
over and above gender (step 2). With the exception of FB openness
and FB positivity, adding the social skills subscales in step 3 significantly improved prediction of each outcome. Nevertheless, attachment anxiety remained a signicant predictor of FB usage, comfort
seeking, evaluation concern and positivity independent of social
skills (step 3). Attachment avoidance remained a signicant predictor of evaluation concern, openness and positivity independent
of social skills.
4. Discussion
The aim of the present study was to explore any links between
attachment style and Facebook use and experience. In line with our
rst three hypotheses, we found that individuals with a high
attachment anxiety were more likely to spend more time on the
site, to use it when they were feeling negative emotions and to
show concern over how other Facebook users perceived them.
We also found no relationship between the avoidant attachment
style and Facebook usage, supporting our fourth hypothesis.
Although social skills were found to have some relationship with
Facebook use and experience, they were found to have little effect
on the relationships between the two attachment styles and Facebook use and experience, supporting our nal hypothesis. This suggests that the way people experience and use Facebook may have a
direct relationship with their style of attachment.
Securely attached individuals have been found to be high in social and emotional expressivity, high in social control, and low in
social sensitivity (Deniz et al., 2005; Dereli & Karakus, 2011). In
the current study social expressivity and social control both were
associated with more openness and positivity towards Facebook.
In addition, while those high in social expressivity and social control tended to use Facebook more than those low in social expressivity and social control, there were no associations between
these traits and comfort seeking or evaluation concern. This pattern
gives rise to an image of a securely attached individual, outgoing,
sociable and expressive, who uses Facebook in a positive way. They
are happy for important others to view their Facebook prole, they
are proud of their Facebook prole and enjoy using Facebook when
feeling happy. Since Nadkarni and Hofmann (2012) suggest that
Facebook may help to increase a sense of connection to others,
our data suggest that securely attached individuals may use Facebook as a tool to augment existing relationships in the ofine world.
Individuals high in attachment anxiety are typically characterized by anxiousness about being alone, being sensitive to criticism
received from others and having a need for reassurance (Brennan
et al., 1998). In the present study, we found that attachment anxiety was positively related to Facebook usage, comfort seeking
and to evaluation concern. This would suggest that Facebook is
being used more frequently by those with an anxious attachment
style as a way to alleviate their feeling of being alone. In addition,
their motivation for logging on and using Facebook may be motivated by their mood that is, they may seek to improve their negative mood by interacting with others. Social networking sites can
offer users instant access to social interaction with a myriad of
people (Urista, Dong, & Day, 2009) and it is perhaps this feature
that is particularly attractive to users high in attachment anxiety.
This instant access offers them interaction with others that may
be needed, particularly when their mood is negative. In a qualitative study, Urista et al. (2009) found that receiving comments on
a photograph, for example, can result in the user feeling as though
they are popular. An anxious Facebook user may log onto their prole when they are in a negative mood to check if any of their
friends have commented on their content, which may improve
their mood by making them feel popular to some degree. What remains to be seen however is whether or not this Facebook usage
results in a changed mood and if so, to what degree. It has been
suggested elsewhere that the link between user experience and
benets gained from Facebook usage may relate to the characteristics of the user and how they use the site (DiTommaso et al., 2003).
Future studies should consider examining the relationships between Facebook use and mood change taking into account each
attachment style. Since those high in attachment anxiety are sensitive to criticism and also require frequent reassurance, it could
be hypothesized that for those high in attachment anxiety, Facebook interactions would only improve mood if the interactions
are constantly positive and continually boost self esteem.
We found that Facebook users who were high in attachment
anxiety were also more likely to be concerned about how other
Facebook users perceive them. Since those high in attachment anxiety are sensitive to criticism, social interactions via Facebook may
be particularly attractive to these individuals. The online environment can provide users with greater control over interactions
(McKenna & Bargh, 2000) and Facebook may therefore allow these
individuals to have greater control over their self-presentation. For
example, they can take their time over what to post on their status
update, what photos to put on their own prole and how to comment on others photos and posts. This may also go some way in
explaining why we found that high attachment anxiety was related
to higher usage of Facebook. For example, upon posting a photograph, the anxious attachment Facebook user may log on regularly
to check if anyone has commented on their photo - being concerned about how others may have perceived them in this photograph. In addition, they may spend more time on the site
perfecting their Facebook self-portrayal, in an attempt to ensure
that others would view them in a positive light.
The present study also provided evidence that regardless of social skills, individuals high in attachment avoidance used Facebook
less often, were less likely to be open about their Facebook prole
and less likely to hold a positive attitude about Facebook. These
ndings would seem to t with the characteristics associated with
this type of attachment that is, someone who is autonomous,
reluctant to share emotions and sees others as untrustworthy.
However, we also found a signicant positive relationship between
high attachment avoidance and evaluation concern. This would
suggest that although those high in attachment avoidance are typically autonomous, they do have some level of concern over how
others view them, at least on Facebook. Since we found no relationship between this style of attachment and social sensitivity, it sug-
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indicated they use Facebook. However, there are other SNSs and
we cannot be sure that the relationships we observed generalize
to other sites. In theory these relationships should generalize to
other sites that also offer the features of enhanced control, self-presentation and perpetual contact that we theorize make Facebook
attractive to individuals with high attachment anxiety. However,
they may not generalize to other sites that serve more professional
than purely social functions, such as Linkedin or Academia. Further
research would be needed to precisely dene which types of internet sites and/or usage are related to attachment styles.
5. Conclusion
To conclude, the current study provides evidence of theoretically consistent relationships between dimensions of adult attachment and Facebook use and experience that are largely
independent of social skills. These ndings support the view that
Facebook (and possibly other SNSs) can serve attachment functions
and may be particularly attractive for individuals high in attachment anxiety. Further research should investigate which attachment functions SNS use serves, or which parts of the attachment
behavioral system SNS use responds to. The current study provides
a promising rst step towards understanding SNS use from the
theoretically rich perspective of adult attachment theory.
Appendix A
Abridged Social Skills Inventory listing the items used to assess
each component of social skills. Responses were given on 5-point
scales ranging from 1 (not at all like me) to 5 (exactly like me).
Emotional Expressivity (EE):
I usually feel uncomfortable touching other people ().
Sometimes I have trouble making my friends and family realize
how angry or upset I am with them ().
I often touch my friends when talking to them.
I rarely show my feelings or emotions ().
I love to socialize.
I always mingle at parties.
At parties I enjoy talking to a lot of different people.
I enjoy going to large parties and meeting new people.
Social Sensitivity (SS):
Items
I get anxious if I cannot check Facebook for a while
If I dont check Facebook for a while I tend to forget about it
The longer I am unable to check Facebook the more I want to check it
I nd myself wanting to check Facebook particularly when I feel lonely
I nd myself wanting to check Facebook particularly when I feel stressed
I nd myself wanting to check Facebook particularly when I feel bored
I nd myself wanting to check Facebook particularly when I feel sad
I nd myself wanting to check Facebook particularly when I feel anxious
I nd myself wanting to check Facebook particularly when I feel happy
I think about removing my Facebook prole
I worry about what people might say about me on Facebook
I worry about the impression people might get of me through Facebook
I am concerned about how I appear to others on Facebook
How I appear to others on Facebook is important to me
I am proud of my Facebook prole
I like my Facebook prole
I would be happy for a potential employer to view my Facebook prole
I would be happy for my parents to view my Facebook prole
Factors
0.564
0.268
0.528
0.757
0.823
0.328
0.828
0.838
0.414
0.147
0.400
0.299
0.310
0.292
0.116
0.076
0.045
0.019
0.001
0.030
0.008
0.128
0.023
0.191
0.022
0.049
0.103
0.266
0.034
0.099
0.005
0.093
0.417
0.428
0.814
0.785
0.410
-0.143
0.402
0.282
0.342
0.085
0.343
0.376
0.213
0.058
0.774
0.895
0.914
0.824
0.233
0.099
0.018
0.017
0.647
0.788
0.722
0.165
0.266
0.073
0.198
0.223
0.293
0.600
0.081
0.076
0.162
0.261
0.277
0.385
0.144
0.068
0.149
0.242
0.188
0.308
0.214
0.628
0.171
0.203
0.482
0.185
0.044
0.049
0.126
0.270
0.738
0.770
0.142
0.187
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