people, solitude might serve as an at‐first desirable means to deactivate attachment needs and feelings, which is their main defensive maneuver (Hazan & Shaver, 1987; Shaver & Mikulincer, 2002). But this can lead to feelings of boredom and meaninglessness, which is the way avoidant people habitually feel during moments of aloneness (Tidwell et al., 1996). It might also become an excuse for sustaining psychological distance from a partner, gradually causing the relationship to fail.
Unfortunately, there has been no systematic, published research program examining links between attachment orientations and solitude. However, a recently unpublished master’s thesis conducted by the third author (Gal, 2019) provides initial evidence on these links. Gal (2019) conducted three correlational studies of married Israeli young adults in which they completed the Experiences in Close Relationships (ECR) scale (Brennan et al., 1998), tapping attachment anxiety and avoidance. They also completed scales assessing preference for solitude (e.g., Burger, 1995) and perceived benefits and threats of being alone (e.g., Segal, 1997). In addition, they completed two new brief scales assessing a participant's capacity to be alone (eight items) and difficulties with a partner’s aloneness (six items) when the two are together at home. When completing these scales, participants were instructed to focus on times when they were at home with their partner and to rate the extent to which they were capable of being alone at these times (e.g., “I find it hard to study or to work alone when my partner is at home,” “I find easy to be alone with myself and to feel peaceful and calm when my partner is at home”) and to accept the partner’s aloneness (e.g., “I find it hard when my partner decides to work or study alone when I'm at home,” “I don't like it when my partner decides to be alone with himself/herself when I'm at home”).
In addition, Gal (2019) conducted a fourth study examining the contribution of attachment orientations to participants’ cognitive and affective responses while being alone in the presence of their romantic partner during a structured laboratory session. Both partners of heterosexual couples living together independently completed the ECR scale and were invited to participate in a laboratory session in which they were asked to freely interact with each other for 10 minutes while simulating being together at home. One of the partners was randomly selected to be the “actor” and, after interacting for three minutes, he or she was privately instructed to be alone in the presence of the other partner without informing him or her about the instructions. After three minutes, the “actor” was instructed to stop what he or she was doing and return to interacting with his or her partner for another two minutes. Then, both partners completed scales describing their own experience during the aloneness period (when the “actor” was instructed to be alone) and during the reunion period (when the actor returned to interact with his or her partner).
Across the four studies there was support for the hypothesized links between attachment anxiety, aversion of solitude, and difficulties in being alone within a close relationship. Specifically, attachment anxiety was significantly associated with the appraisal of more aloneness‐related threats, the report of less capacity to be alone when the partner is at home, and the expression of more difficulties accepting the partner’s periods of solitude. In the experimental session, attachment anxiety was significantly associated with both actors’ and partners’ reports of less ability to be comfortably alone during the aloneness episode and with less positive perceptions of the partner and more negative feelings during both the aloneness and reunion episodes.
The findings also supported the hypothesis that attachment‐avoidant people would prefer to be literally alone and would have difficulty maintaining a balance between solitude and togetherness within a close relationship. Specifically, attachment avoidance was associated with a greater affinity for solitude, but it was also associated with lower ability to be comfortably alone when the partner is at home. In the experimental session, avoidance was significantly associated with both actors’ and partners’ reports of impaired ability to be comfortably alone during the aloneness episode and with less positive perceptions of the partner and less positive feelings during both the aloneness and reunion episodes. Importantly, the observed links between attachment and experiences of solitude could not explained by alternative and related relational and personality constructs, such as relationship satisfaction, trust, intrusiveness, and dependence or self‐direction and autonomy. Rather, the results were found to be a result of attachment dynamics affecting the experience of solitude.
Attachment Orientations and Feelings of Loneliness
The negative mental representations, interpersonal problems, and unstable relationships associated with attachment insecurities not only create problems with being alone and enjoying moments of solitude; they also seem to foster feelings of relationship dissatisfaction and loneliness. The term loneliness refers to a negative psychological experience caused by actual or perceived deficiencies in one’s relationships and from feelings of deprivation in relation to others (Peplau & Perlman, 1982). Larose et al. (2002), for example, defined loneliness as a “subjective distressing and unpleasant state in which individuals perceive deficiencies in their social world” (p. 684). These deficiencies are not only quantitative, such as having few friends or engaging in too few social activities, but are also indicative of poor‐quality relationships in which people feel a lack of intimacy and emotional closeness, and perceive themselves as unloved, unaccepted, insufficiently cared for, misunderstood, or invalidated by a relationship partner (e.g., Ernst & Cacioppo, 1999). The chronic, dispositional form of loneliness is thought to result from a history of relationships with cool, rejecting, inconsistent, or unavailable attachment figures (e.g., Rubenstein & Shaver, 1982; Weiss, 1973).
Working explicitly from an attachment perspective, Weiss (1973) defined loneliness as an emotion that signals unsatisfied needs for proximity, love, and care due to the unavailability and nonresponsiveness of attachment figures. In other words, loneliness is a form of separation distress that results from failure to meet basic attachment needs. As such, loneliness should be mitigated or precluded by partners and relationships that promote a sense of security and satisfy one’s needs for love, acceptance, understanding, and care. In contrast, a history of relationships with unavailable and nonresponsive relationship partners and the resulting attachment insecurities should render a person chronically vulnerable to loneliness (Berlin et al., 1995; Hazan & Shaver, 1987).
Attachment researchers have also hypothesized that anxious attachment is more conducive to loneliness than is avoidant attachment (e.g., Berlin et al., 1995; Hazan & Shaver, 1987). Attachment‐anxious people exaggerate their unsatisfied needs for care and security, which intensifies the psychological pain associated with insufficient or absent love and partner responsiveness. Avoidant people try to deny or inhibit attachment needs and may therefore feel less directly or less consciously frustrated by poor‐quality relationships or nonresponsive partners. As already shown in this chapter, avoidant individuals tend to be disengaged in social interactions, which leads them to feel bored, distant, tense, or irritated (Tidwell et al., 1996), but they can acknowledge those feelings without admitting a need for affection or connectedness. In fact, construing the problem as one of boredom or irritation puts the blame on something outside the avoidant person. One can be bored and critical or dismissing of others without admitting personal needs, insufficiencies, or dependence on others. According to Hazan and Shaver (1987), this stance often allows avoidant people to admit that they are distant from others without missing others or labeling themselves lonely.
These hypotheses have been supported by dozens of studies examining associations between self‐reports of attachment orientation and feelings of loneliness (see Mikulincer & Shaver, 2016, for a complete review of these studies). For example, all studies in which attachment security in relationships with parents during adolescence was correlated with loneliness have produced inverse associations (e.g., Al‐Yagon et al., 2016; Aikins et al., 2009). In addition, more than 95% of the studies that included measures of attachment anxiety or compared anxious with secure people have found that anxious attachment is strongly associated with greater loneliness when examined cross‐sectionally or longitudinally (e.g., Bachem et al., 2019; Pereira et al., 2014). For example, Bartz et al. (2016) found that attachment anxiety
