Attachment Insecurity Mediates the Associations Between Childhood Trauma and Duration of Emotions During a Laboratory-Based Sexual Conflict Discussion Among Couples

Abstract

Childhood trauma alters both emotional and relational processes, and thus could make it more difficult for couples to navigate relationship challenges such as sexual disagreements. Given the potential threat they involve, sexual conflicts may elicit more negative emotions for both partners. They can also trigger attachment insecurities—relational vulnerabilities that are particularly heightened during periods of stress, especially following childhood trauma. Hence, attachment anxiety and avoidance might be mechanisms through which childhood trauma influences couples’ emotion dynamics during sexual conflicts. However, we know very little concerning how emotions unfold moment to moment in the context of couples’ sexual disagreements, and the roles of childhood trauma and attachment insecurities therein. Same- and mixed-gender/sex couples (N = 151) completed online surveys and took part in a laboratory-based filmed discussion about their most important sexual problem. Following the discussion, participants completed self-reported measures of their positive and negative emotions. Then, partners independently viewed their filmed discussion to continuously report on their emotional experience during the conflict and, lastly, trained raters coded the valence of participants’ expression of emotions during the task. Actor–partner interdependence models showed that a person’s greater childhood trauma was associated with fewer positive emotions post-discussion and shorter experienced and expressed positive emotions during the conflict, as well as more negative emotions post-discussion and longer experienced and expressed negative emotions, both directly and indirectly via attachment anxiety (but not attachment avoidance). Results underscore the need to better understand sexuality-related positive and negative emotions in couple interactions, and the role of distal factors such as childhood trauma and attachment.