Gender Roles, Attachment Styles and Perceived Social Support in Interpersonal Relationships

Abstract

The current study explores the relationships among gender roles, attachment styles (closeness, dependency, and anxiety), and perceived social support (PSS). Using correlation and regression analyses, the study found that attachment closeness and dependency positively correlates with PSS, with coefficients of 0.387 and 0.370, respectively (both with p-values < 0.001). Conversely, attachment-related anxiety shows a moderate negative correlation with PSS (r = - 0.475, p < 0.001), suggesting that higher anxiety correlates with lower perceived social support. Regression analysis reveals that the model explains about 22.9% of the variance in PSS (R- squared = 0.229), with significant contributions from attachment closeness, dependency, and anxiety, but not from gender roles. The lack of a significant relationship between gender roles and PSS could reflect changing societal expectations around gender norms. The findings imply that interventions to improve perceived social support should focus on reducing attachment anxiety and promoting attachment closeness and dependency, while further research is needed to understand the evolving role of gender in social support dynamics.