by Bonnie Eissner
Depending on your
outlook, dating can be anxiety-provoking or thrilling. For most of us,
it’s both. Our ambivalence stems from two natural and opposing drives—one to
connect with others and one to protect ourselves from getting hurt. Balancing
these desires is at the core of initiating and sustaining romance. What
happens, then, when a person is especially insecure and harbors a greater fear
of rejection? M. Joy McClure, Ph.D.,
an assistant professor at the Gordon F. Derner Institute of Advanced Psychological Studies,
is intrigued by this question.
Dr. McClure is particularly
interested in a form of insecurity known as attachment anxiety. Such anxiety
develops when others have been inconsistently responsive to our needs. Dr.
McClure describes the condition as being chronically torn between needing to
connect with someone and worrying that the person will leave. People who are
anxiously attached “tend to cling and protest separation,” she says.
Until now, most of the research on
attachment anxiety has focused on ongoing relationships. Dr. McClure wanted to
know whether such anxiety would be problematic from the get-go.
To examine this question, she set up
studies involving speed dating and online dating as well as one in which
participants created video profiles for potential partners and another in which
they collaborated with potential mates on a mock assignment.
Dr. McClure is currently working
with four Adelphi undergraduates to code the online dating study. But from the
other three studies she has gleaned that attachment anxiety leads people to
behave in ways that deter potential mates by seeming either too anxious or,
even worse, aloof. “We see this display of anxiety that leads people to not
really like you, which is kind of sad,” Dr. McClure says.
This piece appeared in the Erudition 2014
edition.
