Debrief Letter: Attachment to Close others Debrief Letter

Participant Debrief                                              

Dated 1.12 2025 Version 1

Attachment with Close others

Thank you for taking part in our research! Now that your contribution has finished, let me explain the rationale behind this work. 

We are interested in the relationship between parental attachment and romantic relationships. We are also interested to see how these variables might be linked with relationships satisfaction and mental health. Further to this we wanted to explore other potential relationships such as if there are any relationships between attachment and the martial status of primary caregivers, attachment and its relationship on love languages, and whether attending boarding school impacts attachment with primary caregivers.

Parental attachment is regarded as a potential predictor of the quality of the child’s future relationships, whether they be romantic, platonic or the relationship with oneself. It has also been proposed that past romantic relationships may affect future ones. For example, anxiety about relationships tends to lead to relationship dissatisfaction (Feeney, 2004). This anxiety could potentially be stemming from past relationships. When looking at parental attachment, marital instability of parents was previously also associated with attachment problems (Crowell et al. 2009).  There has also been some previous research to suggest that boarding school, and specifically age of attending boarding school, can have a negative impact on parental attachment (Wharton & Marcano-Olivier, 2023). Regarding romantic relationships, there is evidence to suggest that parent attachment does play an important role in the development of attachment styles to romantic partners (Grogan, 2008). We are interested to see if that link exists (for example, if an insecure attachment with parents will lead to an insecure attachment with a romantic partner). A greater insight into the relationships and variables mentioned above will allow us to understand how parenting and past relationships can affect all types of future relationships. Currently there is little research into the topic of love languages and attachment styles, despite love languages gaining a lot of attention in the public press (Surijah & Septiarly, 2016) and therefore this in an interesting additional area of study. Overall the study could be widely beneficial, especially in the context of romantic and parental counselling.   This research is important because it will accentuate the importance of a healthy attachment with a parental figure during childhood. 

Your information will be compared with other collected data to see if there is a relationship between these variables. All data will be anonymized and securely stored on a password-protected computer at Swansea University for a minimum of 10 years, in line with university ethical guidelines. Once anonymized on the 31.03.26, it will not be possible to withdraw your data, so if you wish to do so, please inform us before that date using the research team contact details below.

If you feel affected by issues raised by this research and would like to discuss any concerns, please contact the researchers or study Supervisor using the details provided below. If you feel this piece of research may have health implications for you, we advise you to contact your GP (family doctor).

Other sources of support may be found at:  

Researchers contact details:

Alimi Koyum Olaitan
School of Psychology
Swansea University
2339592@swansea.ac.uk		Zaynah Fasih
School of Psychology Swansea University 2317681@swansea.ac.uk		Darra Whyte
School of Psychology
Swansea University
2221081@swansea.ac.uk		 
  Nafisah Abdulrazaq 
School of Psychology Swansea University 2257591@swansea.ac.uk 		  Molly Hayes-Jones
School of Psychology Swansea University 2313113@swansea.ac.uk		  

Study Supervisor: Dr. Vicky Lovett, School of Psychology, Swansea University Email: v.e.lovett@swansea.ac.uk