Why Some People Just “Can’t Get No Satisfaction”: Secure versus Insecure Attachment Styles Affect One’s “Style of Being in the Social World”

We first seek to explore the relationship between attachment styles of professional financial service customers and their ability to experience customer satisfaction and build relationships with a commercial bank. Secure attached people identify with the commercial bank, feel satisfied and are loyal with the commercial bank. Second, we question whether attachment styles and degrees of satisfaction are also reflected in a capacity to feel pleasure in attachments to luxury products, feel happiness and pro-activeness, develop positive relationships with others, and sleep well for multiple samples of non-commercial customers. Apparently, secure attached people form enjoyable attachments with luxury goods/brands. Equally, in life in general they show a proactive attitude and generosity toward others, and feel low envy. Anxious attachment style relates negatively with appraisal of and relationship formation with commercial banks, negatively with enjoyment and attachment to luxury goods, and negatively with generosity towards people and happiness. In addition, anxious attachment style relates positively with envy towards people and low sleep quality. Avoidant attachment style does not relate with any of the above variables except for a negative association with happiness with life in general. Finally, none of the attachment styles scales relates with the BIS-BAS scale, except that anxious attachment relates with the BIS scale, indicating largely that the attachment system does not function as an approach-avoidance system but helps in homeostatic regulation of stress due to the experience of quiescence with others. By studying how attachment styles affect people in commercial and general social domains we hope to pave the way for further exploration of the fundamental mechanisms that drive secure attached people as opposed to insecure attached people to generally experience positive emotions and outcomes in life. We tentatively suggest that compared to insecure attached people, secure attached people possess a different “style of being in the social world.”