The relationship between love addiction in romantic relationships and adult attachment styles

Love addiction and attachment styles in romantic relationships are psychologically and socially important issues. Love addiction is the situation where adults make excessive emotional investments in romantic relationships, placing these relationships at the center of their lives, putting their personal needs to the background, and getting caught up in unhealthy relationship dynamics in the process. Attachment styles refer to emotional bonding patterns that develop in childhood and shape romantic relationships in adulthood. The aim of this study is to determine whether attachment styles predict love addiction in romantic relationships and, if so, to what extent. A total of 671 individuals (209 males, 462 females) studying at Osmaniye Korkut Ata University and having been in a romantic relationship for at least 6 months participated in the study. In the study, 'Addiction in Romantic Relationships Scale' developed by Atlam, Göven and Yüncü (2023) was used to determine the attachment levels of the participants in their romantic relationships, the 'Three Dimensional Attachment Style Scale' developed by Erzen (2016) was used to determine attachment styles, and the Personal Information Form was used to obtain demographic information about the participants. This research is a descriptive study designed according to the relational research model. The predicted variable of the research is Love Addiction, while the predictor variables are Secure Attachment, Avoidant Attachment and Anxious/Ambivalent Attachment. Standard Multiple Regression Analysis was used to determine to what extent the predictor variables predict Love Addiction, and the Pearson Correlation Coefficient was used to examine the relationships between the variables. In order to determine whether there is a difference in love addiction according to sociodemographic characteristics such as age, gender, education level, relationship duration and relationship type, independent samples t-test and One-Way ANOVA technique were used. Data analysis in the research was done using SPSS 27.0 package program. As a result of this study, it was determined that Love Addiction was negatively significantly predicted by Secure Attachment, while Avoidant Attachment and Anxious/Ambivalent Attachment were positively significantly predicted. As a result of the analyses made according to sociodemographic characteristics, it was found that there was a significant difference between love addiction and gender and education status, while there was no significant difference between the variables of age, relationship type and relationship duration. The findings were discussed and evaluated in the light of the relevant literature, and suggestions for future research were presented.