The Role of the Mediator of Attachment Styles in the Relationship between Personality Traits and Fetishism

Fetishism as a sexual deviation is characterized by imaginations, desires, and frequent sexual behaviors focused on objects that are not sexually suggestive to others. This research with a dual purpose, on the one hand, examined the relationship between personality traits, attachment styles and fetishism, and on the other hand, measured the role of attachment styles in relation between personality traits and fetishism.  This is a descriptive and correlational study. The statistical population of the present study was the men over 18 years of age in Tabriz in 2018. From among the community, a sample of 300 participants was selected through available sampling. The research instruments were Adult Attachment Inventory (AAI), NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) and the Multidimensional Inventory of Development, Sex, and Aggression (MIDSA).  The Results showed that the higher the individual score in the variables of neuroticism and agreeableness, the greater the likelihood of a person having a fetishism. Possibly, those with a neurotic trait are more likely to have an avoidant and ambivalent insecure attachment style. The results of multivariable regression analysis also showed that 14% of the fetishism can be explained by personality traits. The greatest contribution was to neuroticism (P<0.01) and then agreeableness (P<0.05). Furthermore, three variables of avoidant attachment, secure attachment and ambivalent attachment predicted a total of 24% of the variance of the fetishism variable. Given the beta value, it is determined that the ambivalent attachment style has the greatest effect on the fetishism variable. Finally, attachment styles act as mediators of the personality trait of neuroticism and fetishism.  Avoidant and ambivalent insecure attachment styles along with personality traits, neuroticism and agreeableness, can lead to sexual deviations, such as Fetishism.