Individuals high in attachment anxiety may experience over compensation of object attachment behaviors that attenuate established negative drawbacks. Studies illustrate a reverse effect, wherein individuals with high levels of uncertainty about their relationships (reflected by trait attachment anxiety) experience no costs for object attachment, rather greater attachment to objects predicted better well-being, due to the security and reduction of anxiety provided by the object, moreover an object can act as a defense against the threat posed by the complexity and unpredictability of other people. This account directly supports a compensatory model: object attachment and attachment anxiety are generally inimical, each may act to mitigate the effects of the other on well-being.



Uncertainty management account

Research illustrates those individuals high in attachment anxiety benefit positively from a strong relationship with their personal belongings and that object attachment is a good predictor of increased meaning in life and significantly greater well-being. In addition, both attachment anxiety and object attachment are high predictors of greater search for meaning in life. 
	


Syracuse University

It is more common for anxiously attached individuals to form strong attachments to consumer brands, to engage in compulsive consumption ostensibly, due to a reduced capacity to cope with stress, and maintain higher materialistic value. These effects may be due to the greater loneliness that anxiously attached individuals often experience Additionally, research has shown that anxiously attached individuals not only exhibit greater object attachment but that this insecurity also predicts increased hoarding behavior.

Insecure attachment & object attachment behavior

Keefer, L. A., & Rothschild, Z. K. (2021). Attachment anxiety mitigates the well-being costs of object attachment. Journal of Individual Differences, 42(1), 41–56. https://doi-org.libezproxy2.syr.edu/10.1027/1614-0001/a000328

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