FOR THE LOVE OF MY COUNTRY: INVESTIGATING PREDICTORS OF ANXIOUS AND AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT TO THE U.S.A.

National attachment refers to the emotional bond one forms with the abstract conception of a nation, similar to how one might imagine a relationship with a god. Although there is a multidisciplinary literature investigating the effects and antecedents of national attachment, there is a distinct lack of research into patterns of national attachment informed by attachment theory. I review the national attachment literature in order to frame the argument for why national attachment ought to be examined from an attachment theory approach. Then, I conduct a study with 217 American adults exploring the associations between two dimensions of national attachment (anxiety and avoidance) and four psychological constructs conceptually linked with national identity (political ideology, interpersonal attachment, moral concerns, and theory of mind) in order to empirically ascertain how national attachment styles are situated within social and political psychology. A consistent association between nationalism and low anxious attachment was found.