Attachment Styles, Emotion Regulation and Mate Selection among Kharazmi University Single Students

One of the important issues in the life of any one is the mate selection. Mate selection and the criteria related to it, as a fundamental factor in creating a warm and friendly atmosphere that underlie the growth and the development of society, have special importance. Given the importance of the issue, the objective of this research was to study the relationship between attachment styles and emotion regulation with mate selection among Kharazmi University single students.This was a correlation study. The research society was all male and female students graduate BS, Kharazmi University of Tehran (93-92 academic year, a total of 5160 students). The sample of 250 people (125 male, 125 female) were selected by using multi-stage cluster sampling method. Then they completed Adult Attachment Style questionnaire, Emotional Regulation subscale and Mate Selection questionnaire. Data analysis, in both descriptive and inferential statistics, was performed using Pearson correlation, Stepwise regression and Independent T-test.Results showed emotion regulation and secure attachment style had a significant positive correlation with components of mate selection including conscientiousness, extraversion and objectivity. Also, results of stepwise regression showed that emotion regulation and ambivalent attachment style can explain 23 percent of variance of conscientiousness of mate selection; Emotion regulation, anxious-ambivalent and avoidant attachment styles can explain 25 percent of variance of extraversion of mate selection, and anxious-ambivalent, avoidant and secure attachment styles can explain 17 percent of variance of objectivity of mate selection. The results of t-test showed that the two groups of male and female are different in conscientiousness of mate selection. In conclusion, These results can be used in premarital consultation with determining attachment style and emotion regulation in order to predict their mate selection criteria.