Study of Correlation between Psychological Well-being and Different Styles of Attachment among Young Adults

Abstract

Psychological well-being is a broad term that encompasses various aspects of one’s mental and emotional health and also involves having positive relationship with others, coping well with stress and growing as a person. According to attachment theory, the emotional bonds we develop early in life influence how we connect with others later. These attachment patterns may also affect our overall mental and emotional well-being during young adulthood. The present study focused the relationship between psychological well-being and different Styles of Attachment among young adults like Secure Attachment, Anxious Attachment, Avoidant Attachment, a quantitative correlational design was used with a sample of 49 participants aged 18–25 years. Data were collected using two standardized tools: the State Adult Attachment Measure (SAAM) and Ryff’s 18-item Psychological Well-Being Scale. The data were analyzed using SPSS to correlate the relationship between the variables. This study helps in understanding how different ways of forming relationships are connected to positive mental health in young adults.

Introduction

The text presents a research study examining the relationship between attachment styles and psychological well-being among young adults (18–25 years).

Psychological well-being is explained using Carol Ryff’s six-dimensional model, which includes autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relationships, purpose in life, and self-acceptance. These dimensions reflect overall positive functioning and thriving in life.

The study is based on attachment theory, which identifies four attachment styles: secure, avoidant, anxious, and disorganized. The research focuses on secure, anxious, and avoidant attachment and investigates how they relate to well-being. It uses a correlational quantitative research design with a sample of 49 young adults, selected through purposive sampling. The tools used were the State Adult Attachment Measure (SAAM) and a Psychological Well-Being Scale, and data were analyzed using SPSS.

Key Findings

• Descriptive statistics showed variation across well-being dimensions.

• Spearman correlation analysis revealed no statistically significant relationship between any attachment style (secure, anxious, avoidant) and overall psychological well-being.

• All p-values were greater than .05.

• Therefore, all null hypotheses were accepted.

• Although some correlations showed weak trends (especially involving anxiety attachment), they were not statistically significant.

Conclusion

Based on the statistical analysis of 49 participants Spearman correlation analyses were used to study the relationship between attachment styles (security, anxiety, and avoidance) and whole psychological well-being. The results indicated that there were no statistically significant correlations between any of the attachment styles and psychological well-being at the significance level of ? = .05. Specifically, the correlation between secure attachment and psychological well-being was not significant, r = ?.061, p = .675. Similarly, anxious attachment was not significantly related to psychological well-being, r = ?.075, p = .608. In addition, avoidant attachment showed no significant correlation with psychological well-being, r = ?.053, p = .719. As all p-values were greater than .05, the null hypotheses for all three attachment styles were retained. These findings suggest that, within the present sample, attachment styles (secure, anxious, and avoidant) do not significantly predict levels of psychological well-being. All three null hypotheses were accepted. This suggests that in this sample, attachment styles do not significantly predict psychological well-being scores.

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Copyright

Copyright © 2026 Nazia Hasan , Dr. Neerja Pandey. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.