Understanding the influence of virtual society on romantic relationships

Background

Experiences of early life adversity and stress are known to affect parent-child attachment. That is, when children are raised in a stressful/adverse environment, it is more common for children to develop an insecure attachment to their parents (i.e., they do not see their parent as a stable attachment figure that will consistently fulfill their psychological and physical needs; Pietromonaco et al., 2013). Attachment theory posits that the relationship between parent and child creates a cognitive schema which influences the way that children approach romantic relationships and attach to romantic partners in adulthood (Fraley & Shaver, 2000). In other words, if children have an insecure attachment to their parents growing up, they will likely form insecure attachments to romantic partners in adulthood. In adulthood, being exposed to either general life stressors or relationships stressors can increase insecure attachment (Domingue & Mollen, 2009; Fraley & Shaver, 1998; Marshall et al., 2013; Rice et al., 2020). That is, across the lifespan, exposure to stress/adversity increases attachment insecurity. Although it is well-established that stressful/adverse experiences increase attachment insecurity, the effect of income inequality (a stressful experience; Ryan et al., 2021) on romantic attachment and relationship dynamics is unknown. There is evidence to suggest that income inequality decreases social trust/cohesion (Casara et al., 2022; Cheng et al., 2021; Sprong et al., 2019) and that both income inequality is associated with misogynistic attitudes (Blake et al., 2021).

Research Questions / Hypotheses

Given that economic inequalities are associated with general social distrust and misogynistic attitudes, we hypothesise that income inequality will increase insecure attachment (i.e., anxious, avoidant, and disorganised attachment styles). We also hypothesise that the effects of income inequality on insecure attachment will be mediated by physical cues of stress (e.g., dry mouth, nausea, rapid breathing) during the income inequality manipulation, and perceived social stress under high inequality.

Participants

230 REP participants completed the study. We asked participants to report the degree of income inequality in Bimboola, and which income tier they were assigned to. 30 were excluded for responding incorrectly to 1 or more of these questions.

Methods

Participants were told to imagine they are members of a virtual society, “Bimboola” and were shown a video describing the income distribution in their society, presented via five income tiers (corresponding to quintile representing the earnings of the poorest 20%, 20-40%, 40-60%, 60-80 %, and 80-100%). Participants were randomly allocated to either an economically unequal society or an economically equal society, and were all assigned to the middle income tier of their respective society. After the Bimboola manipulation, participants were asked questions about their autonomic perceptions during the Bimboola manipulation and perceived degree of social stress in Bimboola, present in Bimboola to determine whether these variables mediate the effects of the Bimboola manipulation on romantic attachment (each variable was measured via a questionnaire). Finally, participants were asked to report their attachment style in Bimboola.

Results

Independent samples t-tests showed that participants assigned to the inequality condition reported more autonomic perceptions (i.e., physical cues of stress) during the Bimboola manipulation and greater perceived social stress in Bimboola, as well as higher levels of anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, and disorganised attachment in Bimboola. Mediation analyses showed that the effect of the Bimboola manipulation on avoidant and disorganized (but not anxious) attachment was mediated by autonomic perceptions during the Bimboola manipulation, and that the effect of the Bimboola manipulation on all three attachment styles was mediated by perceived social stress in Bimboola.

Implications

These results suggest that income inequality increases insecure romantic attachment via increased physical and social stress. Insecure attachment is a major contributor to psychopathology (Mikulincer & Shaver, 2012) and likely contributes to broader physical health related outcomes via the HPA system (Pietromonaco et al., 2013). Understanding the factors that influence romantic attachment (e.g., income inequality) may thus have implications for treatments/interventions/policies that have the potential to alleviate both psychological and physical disease burdens. The findings of this experiment will be presented in journal articles and conference presentations.