Gender Differences in Insecure Attachment Styles, Egalitarian Gender Roles, and Attitudes Toward Dating Violence Among College Students: A Moderated Mediation Model

ABSTRACT The existing literature on dating violence identifies a number of antecedents to dating violence but few studies situate attitudes toward dating violence within attachment theory and the gender role perspective while also accounting for gender differentiations in attitudes toward dating violence. This is a correlational study examining the relationships between attachment styles, egalitarian gender roles, and attitudes toward dating violence. In a sample of 574 college students, results demonstrated a significant low level correlation between avoidant attachment style, egalitarian gender roles, and attitudes toward dating violence. Mediation analysis results showed that egalitarian gender roles significantly mediate the relationship between avoidant attachment dimension and attitudes toward dating violence, while moderation analysis showed that gender is a significant moderator for avoidantly attached individuals. The conditional indirect effect and index of moderated mediation were also significant for the avoidant attachment dimension. The results are discussed in light of the literature on attachment and gender roles.