Childhood Emotional Abuse And Insecure Adult Attachment In Married Adults

Abstract

Young children are very vulnerable to abuse. In Pakistan, according to Dawn News in 2018, more than 10 children are abused every day. Childhood emotional abuse can be extremely stressful for individuals which forms emotional instabilities in their development related to their caregiver. As attachment theory suggest that early attachment with caregivers play an important role in forming healthy adult relationships, those children who experience emotional abuse can develop insecure attachment styles with their romantic partner. The objective of the study is to find out the association between childhood emotional abuse and insecure attachment style in married adults. This study further looked at the gender differences in emotional childhood abuse and insecure attachment style. A primary quantitative method through survey gathered information for this research based on The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire—Short Form, and Experience in Close Relationship Scale-Short Form. 200 married adults participated for our survey after which data was analyzed on SPSS to find a quantifiable relationship between our variables. The results were found that there is a positive association between childhood emotional abuse and insecure adult attachment. Moreover, the study further concluded that there is a significant gender difference, women experience more childhood emotional abuse than men. However, regardless of any sex difference, there isn’t a significant difference when it comes to developing insecure adult attachment.