Parental attachment anxiety: Associations with allostatic load in mothers of 1-year-olds

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 717-737
Author(s):  
Kharah M. Ross ◽  
Heidi S. Kane ◽  
Christine Guardino ◽  
Christine Dunkel Schetter
Keyword(s):  
Maternal Health ◽  
Attachment Style ◽  
Low Income ◽  
Allostatic Load ◽  
Attachment Anxiety ◽  
The Body ◽  
Maternal Perceptions ◽  
Perceived Partner Responsiveness ◽  
Partner Responsiveness ◽  
Father Attachment

Growing evidence indicates that individual differences in attachment style are related to health outcomes. The present study extends this literature by examining whether attachment anxiety in both mothers and fathers predicts maternal health the year following the birth of a child in a sample of 698 low-income, racially diverse couples. We hypothesized that maternal perceptions of partner responsiveness would mediate these associations. Maternal allostatic load, a measure of cumulative wear-and-tear on the body due to stress, was used as an indicator of maternal health. Maternal biomarkers (blood pressure, adiposity, blood metabolites, inflammation, and diurnal cortisol) were scored using clinical or top-quartile cutoffs to compute an allostatic load index. Attachment anxiety and perceived partner responsiveness were assessed in interviews. Path models were used to test indirect associations between mother and father attachment anxiety and maternal allostatic load through perceived partner responsiveness. We found that higher mother and father attachment anxiety were each independently and indirectly associated with higher maternal allostatic load through lower maternal perceptions of partner responsiveness. These findings highlight the need to consider both relationship and partner factors in understanding maternal health.

Today You Care, Tomorrow You Don’t: Differential Roles of Responsiveness Variability and Average Responsiveness in Romantic Attachment

2020 ◽  
pp. 194855062094411
Author(s):  
Gul Gunaydin ◽  
Emre Selcuk ◽  
Betul Urganci ◽  
Sumeyra Yalcintas
Keyword(s):  
Romantic Attachment ◽  
Attachment Anxiety ◽  
Attachment Avoidance ◽  
Romantic Couples ◽  
Perceived Responsiveness ◽  
Specific Attachment ◽  
Perceived Partner Responsiveness ◽  
Relational Outcomes ◽  
Partner Responsiveness

Past work has shown that perceived responsiveness is a key predictor of relational outcomes. However, this work has focused solely on average levels of responsiveness and never studied the role of responsiveness variability (consistency of responsiveness) in intimate relationships. The present study addressed this gap by investigating the long-held but scarcely tested tenet that responsiveness variability and average responsiveness play differential roles in romantic attachment. New romantic couples ( N = 151) reported partner-specific attachment anxiety and avoidance in six sessions. Every evening during the 3-week period in between the first two sessions, participants reported perceived partner responsiveness, allowing us to assess both average responsiveness and responsiveness variability. Our findings provided the first empirical evidence that responsiveness variability uniquely predicted increases in partner-specific attachment anxiety, whereas average responsiveness uniquely predicted decreases in partner-specific attachment avoidance. Average responsiveness and responsiveness variability continued to predict attachment orientations assessed about half a year later.

scholarly journals Mind the Gap: Perceived Partner Responsiveness as a Bridge between General and Partner-Specific Attachment Security

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (19) ◽  
pp. 7178
Author(s):  
TeKisha M. Rice ◽  
Madoka Kumashiro ◽  
Ximena B. Arriaga
Keyword(s):  
Romantic Relationships ◽  
Attachment Theory ◽  
Attachment Security ◽  
Attachment Anxiety ◽  
Secure Attachment ◽  
Specific Attachment ◽  
Perceived Partner Responsiveness ◽  
Core Idea ◽  
Partner Responsiveness ◽  
A Current

A core idea of attachment theory is that security develops when attachment figures are responsive to a person’s connection needs. Individuals may be more or less secure in different relationships. We hypothesized that individuals who perceive a current relationship partner as being responsive to their needs will feel more secure in that specific relationship, and that the benefits of perceived partner responsiveness would be more pronounced for individuals who generally feel insecure. The current study included 472 individuals (236 couples) in romantic relationships. Consistent with our predictions, individuals who perceived more responsiveness from their partner displayed lower partner-specific attachment anxiety and partner-specific avoidance, especially when they were generally insecure. These findings are discussed in terms of the conditions that promote secure attachment bonds.

scholarly journals Self-Compassion as a Mediator of the Relationship between Adult Women’s Attachment and Intuitive Eating

Nutrients ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 3124
Author(s):  
Noémie Carbonneau ◽  
Mélynda Cantin ◽  
Kheana Barbeau ◽  
Geneviève Lavigne ◽  
Yvan Lussier
Keyword(s):  
Attachment Style ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Eating Behaviors ◽  
Attachment Anxiety ◽  
The Body ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Intuitive Eating ◽  
Adult Women ◽  
Self Compassion

Despite growing interest in intuitive eating—a non-dieting approach to eating that is based on feeding the body in accordance with physiological and satiety cues—research on its determinants is scarce. The present study aimed to examine the associations between dimensions of adult attachment (i.e., anxiety and avoidance) and intuitive eating, and the mediating role of self-compassion in these relationships. The sample comprised 201 French-Canadian young adult women (M = 25.1, SD = 4.6). Participants completed self-report questionnaires through an online survey. Results of the structural equation model demonstrated that attachment-related anxiety and avoidance were negatively associated with intuitive eating, and these relationships were at least partially mediated by self-compassion. Findings suggest that women who have high levels of attachment anxiety or avoidance engage in less intuitive eating partly because they are less self-compassionate. Results highlight the importance of self-compassion in facilitating adaptive eating behaviors in adult women, especially if they have an insecure attachment style to romantic partners.

Burnout of the Mind – Burnout of the Body?

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Traunmüller ◽  
Kerstin Gaisbachgrabner ◽  
Helmut Karl Lackner ◽  
Andreas R. Schwerdtfeger
Keyword(s):  
Blood Pressure ◽  
Allostatic Load ◽  
Maslach Burnout Inventory ◽  
The Body ◽  
Lower Percentage ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Urinary Catecholamines ◽  
Morning Cortisol ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Cortisol Increase

Abstract. In the present paper we investigate whether patients with a clinical diagnosis of burnout show physiological signs of burden across multiple physiological systems referred to as allostatic load (AL). Measures of the sympathetic-adrenergic-medullary (SAM) axis and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis were assessed. We examined patients who had been diagnosed with burnout by their physicians (n = 32) and were also identified as burnout patients based on their score in the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS) and compared them with a nonclinical control group (n = 19) with regard to indicators of allostatic load (i.e., ambulatory ECG, nocturnal urinary catecholamines, salivary morning cortisol secretion, blood pressure, and waist-to-hip ratio [WHR]). Contrary to expectations, a higher AL index suggesting elevated load in several of the parameters of the HPA and SAM axes was found in the control group but not in the burnout group. The control group showed higher norepinephrine values, higher blood pressure, higher WHR, higher sympathovagal balance, and lower percentage of cortisol increase within the first hour after awakening as compared to the patient group. Burnout was not associated with AL. Results seem to indicate a discrepancy between self-reported burnout symptoms and psychobiological load.

Perceived partner responsiveness, responsive parenting and child health and well-being

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heidi Kane ◽  
Erin T. Tobin ◽  
Daniel J. Saleh ◽  
Sylvie Naar-King ◽  
Wayne Pierantoni ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Child Health ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Responsive Parenting ◽  
Perceived Partner Responsiveness ◽  
Partner Responsiveness ◽  
Health And Well Being ◽  
And Child Health

scholarly journals Life Course Predictors of Allostatic Load Among LGBTQ Older Adults

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 735-735
Author(s):  
Charles Hoy-Ellis ◽  
Hyun Kim ◽  
Karen Fredriksen Goldsen
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Interpersonal Violence ◽  
Allostatic Load ◽  
Identity Management ◽  
The Body ◽  
Linear Regression Models ◽  
Psychophysiological Stress ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Wear And Tear

Abstract LGBTQ older adults are at significantly increased risk for poor mental and physical health, likely consequential to lifelong bias. Allostatic load (AL), the net effect of “wear and tear” on the body resulting from repeated, chronic over-activation of the psychophysiological stress response system. Utilizing the Health Equity Promotion Model, the aim of this study was to test potential life course predictors of AL, including interpersonal violence, legal marriage, and identity management in a sample of LGBTQ adults 50 to 97 years of age (n=317). Results from a series of hierarchical linear regression models showed that adult physical abuse and late identity disclosure for those who had been in an opposite-sex marriage predicted higher AL in this sample of LGBTQ older adults, indicating need for increased research on bias over the life course as contributory to AL and biopsychosocial dysfunction among LGBTQ older adults.

Psycho-social factors associated with maternal neonaticide

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (S1) ◽  
pp. S583-S583
Author(s):  
T. Amirejibi
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Extended Family ◽  
The Body ◽  
Criminal Offense ◽  
Factors Associated ◽  
Competing Interest ◽  
Legal Frameworks ◽  
Premarital Sexual ◽  
And Coping

Current research presents five case studies of maternal neonaticide in Georgia. Participants were under the age of thirty, with incomplete secondary education, unemployed, dependent on their families’ low income, living in the rural areas of Georgia. In three cases, participants resided with their family of origin. They were not married or in a relationship with the father of the child. They described their families and communities as conservative, holding strong cultural/religious beliefs against premarital sexual relations/childbirth out of wedlock. They lacked problem solving and coping skills, avoided making decisions concerning the pregnancy by concealing it. This being their first pregnancy, they gave birth alone followed by panic and fear of detection, committed neonaticide and hid the body of the infant. None of them had a prior criminal record. In the remaining cases, participants were married, lived with their spouses and children, had financial hardships. Both reported psychological and physical abuse from their spouses. One of them had a prior criminal offense for possessing controlled substances. The motive for neonaticide was an unwanted child due to an extramarital affair and threat of financial abandonment from extended family. In both cases, infants suffered fatal injuries. All participants reported lack of social support and emotional neglect from family members. These results are in line with international research, suggesting that certain patterns among these mothers are shared. Psychosocial factors associated with neonaticide should be utilized in the process of planning and implementing preventive strategies in health, social and legal frameworks.Disclosure of interestThe author has not supplied his/her declaration of competing interest.

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