The Influence of Attachment Anxiety on Grief Intensity and Perceived Social Support: A Cross-cultural Bereavement Study

Abstract

Previous studies have investigated and reported the significance of the role of attachment insecurities to play during bereavement. Most of those studies though have been conducted in Western cultures and the non-Western ones are largely from South-East Asia. This study however compares the impact of attachment on the grief intensity and the perceived social support in Western culture(Spain) to two non-Western from Africa (Ghana) and the Middle East (Iran). A sample of 354 bereaved participants from Spain, Ghana, and Iran took part in an online survey and answered the questionnaire. The findings of the study show that in both individualist and collectivist societies, higher attachment anxiety predicted higher grief intensity and lower perceived social support. Additionally, it has been shown that culture does not significantly moderate the relationship between attachment anxiety and grief intensity. Moreover, the culture did not moderate the relationship between attachment anxiety and perceived social support as expected. Implications, possible explanations and limitations were discuss