The Predictive Power of Adult Attachment Dimensions on Couple Burnout: The Case of University Academic Staff

The purpose of this study is to examine how the attachment styles of academicians influence the level of couple burnout in marriage. The study group of the research consists of 314 participants, 103 female and 211 male, working as academic staff in a public university. 17.5% of the participants have bachelor s degree, 25.8% have master s degree and 56.7% have PhD. 8.6% of the study group are professors, 10.8% are associate professors, 21.0% are assistant professors, 8.3% are lecturers, 32.2% are research assistants and 19.1% are employed in other academic units. The data of the research is collected in the 2015-2016 academic year. In order to determine the level of couple burnout of the participants in the study, Couple Burnout Measure (CBM); and to determine the attachment formation related to close relationships, Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised (ECR-R) is used by adapting to married individuals. In order to adapt ECR-R to married individuals, data is collected from 188 married (142 female and 46 male) participants separately from the study group, and reliability and validity checks are performed. The form of the ECR-R which can be used in the married individuals sample was obtained a two dimensional structure in accordance with the factor structure of the original scale. As a result of factor analysis; Items 1, 2, 6, 9, 10, 12, 17, 28, 31 and 35 were removed from the scale.. Of the remaining 26 items, 13 items are in the attachment related anxiety dimension and 13 items are in the attachment related avoidance dimension. The adopted form of ECR-R explains 37,535 of the variance. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the characteristics of the study group.When analyzing the data, multiple linear regression analysis is used for the procedures related to the ECR-R s degree of predicting the CBM scores. Prior to multiple linear regression analysis, it is checked that whether the variables meet the assumptions and requirements for regression analysis. The findings obtained through multiple linear regression analysis suggest that anxiety and avoidance, the insecure attachment dimensions, explain 23% of the total variance of the burnout scores of academic staff. The remaining part, on the other hand, is explained by other variables that are not included in the model. According to the research results, anxious and avoidant attachment are the determinants of the couple burnout experienced in marital relationship by academic staff. The research findings are interpreted on the basis of previous research findings and theoretical explanations related to Psychodynamic-Existential Couple Burnout Model and Attachment Theory.