Research shows that particularly severe or chronic stressors may overwhelm the caregiver and decrease their ability to provide support to the partner. For example, Bolger, Foster, Vinokur, and Ng (1996) found that breast cancer patients who experienced the highest levels of distress in the month immediately following their diagnosis were less likely to receive support from their husbands over the following six months. 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). For example, caregivers higher on empathic accuracy tend to provide more instrumental support and less negative support (e.g., accusing or criticizing) to their spouse. Attachment style Attachment theory postulates that the quality of caregiving an individual receives shapes many of the skills and motivations necessary for that individual to enact caregiving themself. Indeed, research shows that personal attachment style (i.e., level of attachment security versus attachment avoidance or anxiety) is tightly linked to beliefs about, and strategies in, providing care to dependent others. Attachment avoidance, which is characterized by discomfort with intimacy, is related to less support giving and with keeping distance from a partner in need, particularly when the partner is experiencing higher levels of distress. When avoidant individuals do provide support, they tend to be more controlling. 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). For example, anxiously attached individuals provide higher levels of support to partners who are about to engage in a stressful laboratory task, and this support is not matched to the level of need expressed by their partner. Anxiously attached individuals also display more negative support behaviours, such as blaming. Secure attachment is associated with more effective forms of caregiving (i.e., care that is responsive and not overinvolved). Care recipient characteristics Because careseeking and caregiving are highly interdependent, complementary processes, individuals are more likely to receive caregiving efforts from their partner when they experience and express higher levels of distress or need. More generally, psychology research on helping suggests that one of the strongest determinants of helping behaviour is the structure of the situation – more specifically, the degree to which potential helpers are able to notice that the need for help exists. In the context of romantic relationships, researchers have