Attachment Styles and Personal Growth following Romantic Breakups The Mediating Roles of Distress, Rumination, and Tendency to Rebound.docVIP

AttachmentStylesandPersonalGrowthfollowing RomanticBreakups:TheMediatingRolesofDistress, Rumination,andTendencytoRebound TaraC.Marshall*,KathrineBejanyan,NelliFerenczi DepartmentofPsychology,BrunelUniversity,London,UnitedKingdom Abstract Thepurposeofthisresearchwastoexaminetheassociationsofattachmentanxietyandavoidancewithpersonalgrowth followingrelationshipdissolution,andtotestbreakupdistress,rumination,andtendencytoreboundwithnewpartnersas mediatorsoftheseassociations.Study1(N=411)andStudy2(N=465)measuredattachmentstyle,breakupdistress,and personal growth; Study 2 additionally measured ruminative reflection, brooding, and proclivity to rebound with new partners.Structuralequationmodellingrevealedinbothstudiesthatanxietywasindirectlyassociatedwithgreaterpersonal growth through heightened breakup distress, whereas avoidance was indirectly associated with lower personal growth throughinhibitedbreakupdistress.Study2furthershowedthatthepositiveassociationofbreakupdistresswithpersonal growthwasaccountedforbyenhancedreflectionandbrooding,andthatanxiousindividuals’greaterpersonalgrowthwas also explained by their proclivity to rebound. These findings suggest that anxious individuals’ hyperactivated breakup distressmayactasacatalystforpersonalgrowthbypromotingthecognitiveprocessingofbreakup-relatedthoughtsand emotions, whereas avoidant individuals’ deactivated distress may inhibit personal growth by suppressing this cognitive work. Citation: Marshall TC, Bejanyan K, Ferenczi N (2013) Attachment Styles and Personal Growth following Romantic Breakups: The Mediating Roles of Distress, Rumination,andTendencytoRebound.PLoSONE8(9):e75161.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0075161 Editor:MariannaMazza,CatholicUniversityofSacredHeartofRome,Italy ReceivedJanuary7,2013;AcceptedAugust13,2013;PublishedSeptember16,2013 Copyright: ? 2013 Marshall etal. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricteduse,distributio