Caregiving behaviours are aimed at reducing the partner's distress and supporting their coping efforts in situations of either threat or challenge.
[3] Attachment theory, an influential theoretical framework for the study of intimate relationships and personality development, argues that all humans are born with the capacity and motivation to engage in caregiving behaviours aimed at providing protection and support to close others.
That is, because infants in many primate species, including humans, are highly altricial (i.e., developmentally immature and helpless at birth), they cannot survive without caregiver support and protection.
[4][6] Attachment theory proposes that this evolutionary pressure favoured the emergence of the caregiving behavioural system, which functions to safeguard the vulnerable dependent from harm by providing them with protection, comfort, and help during times of threat or need.
[2][4][7][8] Although this system was first conceptualized in child–parent bonds, its operation has since been established in adult intimate relationships, where both partners may occasionally take on the role of caregiver.
[11] In this model, a history of receiving effective care from intimate others (whether parents in childhood or romantic partners in adulthood) promotes a sense of attachment security – an interpersonal orientation characterized by the expectation that other people may be relied on for support, and subsequent comfort with intimacy and emotional closeness.
In contrast, a history of interactions with cold or rejecting caregivers promotes attachment avoidance – an interpersonal orientation marked by discomfort with intimacy, a reluctance to rely on others for support, and the tendency to suppress emotional distress.
Care that is inconsistent or intrusive is believed to foster attachment anxiety, which is characterized by excessive preoccupation with intimate relationships and inability to effectively regulate one's own emotional distress.
The empathic stance is characterized by two key, related components: sensitivity and responsiveness (although note that these terms are sometimes used interchangeably in the caregiving and social support literatures).
[22] Consequently, Niall Bolger and colleagues have put forward the idea that support is most effective when it is invisible, or operates outside of the care-recipient's direct awareness.
That is, effective caregivers do not provide support when it is neither needed nor desired, attempt to take over or control the activity, or disrupt the partner's goal strivings.
Third, partners should communicate encouragement and acceptance of exploration (i.e., convey enthusiasm about the pursuit rather than suggest that it is not worthwhile or will somehow detract from the relationship).
[30] Such research is consistent with the idea that the most effective type of support for promoting personal growth (e.g., accepting challenges, trying new things, exploring) is support that involves simply communicating availability, and that individuals who feel confident in the availability of a secure base to fall back on in case their goal pursuits go wrong are less likely to actually over-rely on their secure base.
[25][26] In psychology, capitalization refers to the process of drawing additional benefits (e.g., increases in good mood) from a positive event by sharing it with other people.
Specifically, receipt of such support increases feelings of trust and the endorsement of a more prosocial orientation (i.e., the willingness to respond positively in an unpleasant or conflict situation involving one's relationship partner).
[35] Gable and colleagues[32] have delineated four basic types of responses individuals may exhibit when a relationship partner shares a positive event with them.
[9][12] Research shows that particularly severe or chronic stressors may overwhelm the caregiver and decrease their ability to provide support to the partner.
[37] Another relevant skill is called empathic accuracy, which is defined as the “ability to accurately infer the specific content of another person's thoughts and feelings (Ickes, 1993, p. 588).
[36] Attachment anxiety is related to controlling, overinvolved, intrusive, and compulsive caregiving (e.g., preoccupation with the fear that the partner will leave them if they do not provide adequate care).
[48] In the context of romantic relationships, researchers have similarly argued that in order to enact caregiving, individuals must first realize that their partner requires care.