Broadly, my research interests concern the intrapersonal (e.g., mental and physical health) and dyadic (e.g., communication) factors which influence the individual (e.g., wellbeing) and relationship (e.g., sexual satisfaction) outcomes of people in romantic relationships. In my dissertation research, I am examining the concurrent and longitudinal associations between adult attachment, sexual communication, and sexual satisfaction in a sample of cohabiting couples. I expect that attachment insecurity will be associated with poorer quality sexual communication, which in turn will predict lower sexual satisfaction for both insecure individuals and their partners. I am also interested in examining the potential protective role of positive sexual outcomes (e.g., greater sexual satisfaction) in insecure individuals’ relationships.

In my master’s research, I also examined how attachment relates to romantic partners’ communication behaviour. In two studies, I tested hypotheses examining 1) if highly anxious individuals prefer to seek information indirectly (vs. directly) in potentially relationship-threatening situations, and 2) if these individuals tend to associate direct information seeking with negative outcomes. Study 1 revealed that as predicted, highly anxious individuals were more likely to endorse indirect information seeking strategies but less likely to endorse a direct approach in a hypothetical scenario. The negative association between attachment anxiety and direct strategy endorsement was fully mediated by expected outcomes. In contrast, in Study 2 highly anxious individuals in a laboratory experiment relationship threat condition reported greater desire to directly seek information from their partners. These conflicting results suggest that the conditions influencing highly anxious individuals’ strategy preferences may be quite complex and warrant future research.