Relations between Attachment, Resilience, and Earned Security in Japanese University Students

This study investigated the relations between attachment, resilience, and earned security in Japanese university students. It was hypothesized that resilience would have a positive relationship with attachment and that people who had an insecure attachment style but high resilience would also have high earned security. An earned security scale was developed, based on the Naikan thought scale and attachment theory. The earned-security scales, a resilience scale, and an internal working model scale were administered to 343 university students. Three trends were apparent: (1) positive correlations between secure attachment scores and resilience scores; (2) negative correlations between insecure ambivalent attachment scores and resilience scores, but people classified in the ambivalent attachment cluster and high resilience group had higher earned security; and (3) avoidant attachment scores had negligible correlations with resilience and earned security.