 30. Attachment Theory and Personality  661
research. It seems unlikely, however, based 
on the evidence reviewed here, that these 
relations exist because  the attachment di -
mensions are simply manifestations of the 
Big Five personality traits. In light of the 
previous discussion of the ways in which 
people can experience different levels of 
security with different significant others in 
their lives, it would be interesting for future 
research to examine the way relationship- 
specific measures of attachment relate to 
measures of basic personality traits and see 
whether basic personality traits are able to 
explain part of what is common across vary -
ing relationships.
Concluding  Comments
Attachment theory arose from the psycho -
analytic stream of personality theorizing, 
but because Bowlby was unusually open 
to emerging cognitive and ethological ap -
proaches to human and nonhuman primate 
behavior, and because he and Ainsworth 
were both empirically and theoretically 
oriented, the theory has remained open to 
other approaches and to subsequent theo -
retical and methodological developments. 
The theory spans several areas of psychol -
ogy: personality, social, developmental, 
clinical, and comparative. It is as congenial 
to “negative psychology” (i.e., focusing on 
psychopathology and dysfunction) as it is to 
“positive psychology” (prosocial behavior, 
self- actualization). The theory was cogni -
tive in certain respects from the start, but 
it has become more sophisticated cognitively 
as researchers have used methods rang -
ing from discourse analysis (in the AAI) to 
social cognition constructs and research 
paradigms. Although we have not stressed 
its connections with learning or behaviorist 
approaches to personality development, the 
ways in which parental behavior influence 
the attachment patterns of infants could eas -
ily, and perhaps productively, be conceptual -
ized in social learning theory terms, despite 
the historical antipathy between attachment 
and learning theorists.
Attachment theory explains how social 
“situations” (i.e., interactions with regular 
caregivers) build personality (i.e., attach -
ment patterns), and how the resulting per -sonality patterns then influence a person’s 
choices among, and behavior in, social situa -
tions (especially close relationships). Most of 
the classic issues, debates, and conundrums 
in personality psychology have played them -
selves out within the field of attachment re -
search, with largely productive results. We 
have not had space to say much about con -
temporary neuroscience methods, but there 
is already some interesting neuroscience re -
search within the attachment domain (see, 
e.g., Coan, 2016; Gillath, Bunge, Shaver, 
Wendelken, & Mikulincer, 2005). Attach -
ment theory and research provide a model of 
integration across what once were separate 
and ferociously defended fiefdoms within 
personality psychology. We look forward 
with great interest to the field’s further de -
velopment, diversification, and integration.
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