Perceived Stability Explains Attachment Differences Between Gay and Heterosexual Men

A study of 603 emerging adult men in Shanghai found that gay men reported more anxious and avoidant patterns of romantic attachment than heterosexual men, but the apparent group difference disappeared when researchers accounted for how secure the men believed their relationships to be. The findings point to perceived relationship stability, rather than the number or sequence of past romantic relationships, as the factor most closely associated with attachment insecurity in this sample. The result does not mean that sexual orientation directly causes insecure attachment. Instead, it suggests that attachment patterns may be shaped by the expectations and social conditions surrounding a person’s current and future relationships.

Researchers Fan Yang and Zichen Zhai divided the participants into groups of 303 gay men and 300 heterosexual men, all aged between 20 and 29. Each participant completed measures assessing two central dimensions of adult romantic attachment: anxiety and avoidance. Attachment anxiety generally reflects concerns about a partner’s availability, responsiveness or commitment, while attachment avoidance reflects discomfort with dependence, intimacy or closeness. In the study’s statistical framework, perceived romantic relationship stability was tested as a possible mediator, meaning a variable that could help explain why the two groups differed.

The initial comparison was consistent with the pattern found in some earlier, but notably inconsistent, research on sexual-minority and heterosexual relationships. Gay participants reported significantly higher levels of both attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance. On their own, those scores could have supported the broad interpretation that gay men are generally more insecurely attached. Yet such a conclusion would risk treating a group average as a fixed trait and overlooking the relational experiences and social pressures that may shape feelings of security.

Attachment theory distinguishes relatively enduring individual differences in the use of close relationships from the ways those patterns continue to respond to later experiences. Adults can carry expectations shaped by earlier relationships into new partnerships, but their sense of security can also change when a relationship feels dependable, threatening or uncertain. A history involving separations, breakups or other transitions may influence emotional responses, yet the new study found that romantic history did not account for the difference between gay and heterosexual men. Perceived stability, by contrast, fully mediated the observed group differences in both attachment dimensions in the researchers’ analyses.

That result is best understood as a statistical explanation, not proof of a simple chain of causation. The cross-sectional design measured attachment, perceived stability and relationship history at the same general point in time. It therefore cannot determine whether believing a relationship is stable makes attachment more secure, whether more secure relationships produce stronger expectations of stability, or whether other factors influence both perceptions. The authors’ broader argument is that adult attachment remains responsive to ongoing relational conditions rather than being fixed entirely by early experiences or identity.

The finding is especially relevant because same-sex relationships can exist within social and institutional environments that differ from those experienced by heterosexual couples. In China, as in many other societies, legal recognition, family acceptance, social stigma and exposure to discrimination may affect how individuals anticipate the continuity and acceptance of a romantic relationship. These conditions can also contribute to minority stress. The study did not directly test each of these social mechanisms, so it cannot assign the perceived-stability difference to any single policy or experience. It does, however, identify relational confidence as a plausible and measurable pathway connecting broader conditions to attachment.

The authors argue that structural support for same-sex relationships and protections against discrimination may therefore have implications for relational well-being. Greater legal and social security could help make relationships feel more durable, while reduced stigma could lessen the expectation that a partnership will be hidden, invalidated or interrupted. Such changes would not constitute a psychological treatment for attachment anxiety or avoidance, nor would they guarantee a particular level of security. The causal chain is more modest: conditions that make a relationship appear less vulnerable may correspond with perceptions of greater stability, which in turn are associated with less anxious and less avoidant attachment.

The study also illustrates why relationship history is not interchangeable with relationship quality or expectations about the future. A person may have experienced several past partners without feeling especially insecure, while another may have had fewer relationships yet feel unsettled about commitment and closeness. In the analyses reported by Yang and Zhai, the gay–heterosexual differences in attachment were fully explained by perceived stability but not by romantic relationship history. History may still matter in individual lives and in other populations, but the present data do not support treating it as the main explanation for the disparity observed here.

Several boundaries are important when interpreting the results. The participants were emerging adults recruited in a single Chinese city, and the study included only men, including gay and heterosexual men, rather than all sexual-minority and heterosexual adults. The findings therefore should not automatically be generalized to women, other age groups, other cultures or people outside major urban settings. Perceived stability was also assessed as a central explanatory variable, and the research establishes a relationship among reported measures rather than experimentally changing the conditions in which participants formed relationships. The preregistered hypotheses, sample size, exclusions and analysis plan provide transparency, but they do not remove the limits inherent in the design.

Even with those caveats, the study offers a useful shift in emphasis. Instead of asking whether gay men are inherently more insecurely attached, the analysis asks a more contextual question: under what conditions do gay and heterosexual men come to feel differently secure in romantic relationships? The answer offered here is that perceptions of stability account for the difference. That finding moves attention away from sexual identity as a simple explanation and toward the experiences, expectations and structural environments that can make intimacy feel precarious. For emerging adults, whose relationships are often shaped by transitions in study, work and family life, perceived durability may be a particularly important marker of relational security.

Subject of Research: Perceived relationship stability as a mediator of attachment anxiety and avoidance among gay and heterosexual emerging adult men

Article Title: Are gay men more insecurely attached than heterosexual men in romantic relationships? Perceived relationship stability, rather than relationship history, matters

Article References: Yang, F., & Zhai, Z. (2026). Are gay men more insecurely attached than heterosexual men in romantic relationships? Perceived relationship stability, rather than relationship history, matters. BMC Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-026-05621-z

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s40359-026-05621-z

Keywords: romantic attachment, gay men, relationship stability, attachment anxiety, attachment avoidance, minority stress, emerging adulthood, same-sex relationships, insecurely, attached, than, heterosexual