Adult attachment styles and romantic partner seeking trends in social media
Published:
Dec 28, 2025
Keywords:
adult attachment, social media, romantic partnet seeking, cluster analysis, correspondence analysis
Abstract
Based on the underpinnings of adult attachment theory with respect to romantic partner choice the present study investigates the trends underlying romantic partner seeking in social media. Previous research has evinced the vast expansion of social media use in romantic relationships (e.g. initiation, termination) and presented findings pointing that individuals with different attachment styles tend to act differently in the social media as far as seeking a romantic partner is concerned. Still, relative findings seem to be fractional and incomplete. In the present research 418 adults completed online a self-reported questionnaire assessing their adult attachment style along with a list of items investigating their use of social media with respect to romantic partner seeking. Cluster analysis indicated 4 distinct adult attachment styles in accordance with the two-dimensional model of adult attachment. Correspondence analysis highlighted noteworthy differences in intimate partner seeking trends. That is, adults high in both anxiety and avoidance were found having active accounts in both Facebook and Instagram, spending more than 3 hours every day in social media, inspecting photos, videos and stories that individuals who are interested in upload, flirting via the social media and going on a date with adults who ask them through social media. On the contrary, adults low in both anxiety and avoidance were found having active accounts in Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, but spending at most 1 hour daily in social media, rarely inspecting photos, videos and stories of a person they are interested in and prefering to choose the person they would wish to date instead of being chosen. Findings are discussed with respect to previous ones in the context of internal working models. Implications of the present research might be useful to both scholars studying romantic relationships in the digital world and therapists working with individuals or couples.
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Lampridis, E., Toudas, D., & Kalamaras, D. (2025). Adult attachment styles and romantic partner seeking trends in social media. Psychology: The Journal of the Hellenic Psychological Society, 30(2), 411–427. https://doi.org/10.12681/psy_hps.43976
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