Parental and partner attachment working models in romantic relationships of nonbinary adults

Attachment working models are mental and emotional representations of the self and others. A central question within attachment theory is how best to conceptualize the relationship between different attachment working models, such as how one’s attachment to parents may influence partner-specific working models and impact romantic relationship satisfaction. Despite the robust evidence that attachment theory can be appropriately applied across developmental and cultural contexts and the functional similarity of attachment in women and men, little research has examined attachment working models among nonbinary people. The current study tested competing hypotheses replicating the work by Dugan and Fraley (2022), extended to a large sample of nonbinary adults (N = 2,811). Similar to previous findings, our results supported the mediation hypothesis, which suggests that parental (defined as mother and father) attachment working models indirectly relate to romantic relationship satisfaction through romantic partner attachment working models. We also report comparisons of attachment overall between nonbinary people, men, and women, which showed that there were smaller mean differences between nonbinary people and women, yet more similar correlations between nonbinary people and men. These findings highlight the generalizability of attachment theory to diverse, nonbinary gender identities.