How do people form strong interpersonal bonds? It’s well known that people who have close social ties are happier and healthier and also live longer than people who lack such ties, but how do these bonds develop?

Much has been written about infant bonds with caregivers – especially whether they are secure or anxious or avoidant – and about similar differences in adult bonds with romantic partners. Most of this research has focused on how individuals – whether infants or adults – differ in the ways they think, feel and behave in these closest of interpersonal relationships.

The new book Bases of Adult Attachment (Springer, 2015) has something unique to add to this discourse.  It addresses the phenomena of adult romantic attachment from two perspectives that have thus far been missing:  how do two adults go from being relative strangers to being attached in a manner that significantly affects day to day happiness, overall wellbeing, even morbidity and mortality AND what are the mechanisms by which early attachment experiences with caregivers shape adult romantic relationship outcomes?

Join us for a Chats in the Stacks book talk with editors Vivian Zayas, associate professor of psychology and director of the Personality, Attachment, and Control Laboratory at Cornell University; and Cindy Hazan, associate professor of human development and director of the Adult Attachment Laboratory in the College of Human Ecology. Drawing upon research from neuroscience as well as developmental, social, cognitive and clinical psychology, their book is the first of its kind.  It analyzes factors that might explain who we are attracted to and why, and how early experiences shape not only what we seek but how our relationships unfold over time.

Light refreshments served and books available for purchase.

The book talk series at Mann Library is supported by the Mary A. Morrison Public Education Fund.