Is Virginia for lovers? Geographic variation in adult attachment orientation

- People often use relationships to characterize and describe places.
- Little is known whether relationships and relational styles vary across geography.
- We examined geographic variation in 127,070 US participants.
- Atlantic and Northeast states were most anxious; frontier states were most avoidant.
- Attachment was related to state-level relational indicators in predictable ways.

People often use relationships to characterize and describe places. Yet, little research examines whether people's relationships and relational style vary across geography. The current study examined geographic variation in adult attachment orientation in a sample of 127,070 adults from the 50 United States. The states that were highest in attachment anxiety tended to be in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast region of the United States. The states that were highest in attachment avoidance tended to be in the frontier region of the United States. State-level avoidance was related to state-level indicators of relationship status, social networks, and volunteering behavior. The findings are discussed in the context of the mechanisms that may give rise to regional variation in relational behavior.