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Adult attachment and cortisol responses to discussions with a romantic partner
Author(s) -
BROOKS KATHRYN P.,
ROBLES THEODORE F.,
SCHETTER CHRISTINE DUNKEL
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
personal relationships
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.81
H-Index - 83
eISSN - 1475-6811
pISSN - 1350-4126
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-6811.2011.01357.x
Subject(s) - psychology , romance , multilevel model , reactivity (psychology) , context (archaeology) , anxiety , developmental psychology , social psychology , attachment theory , clinical psychology , medicine , psychiatry , paleontology , alternative medicine , pathology , machine learning , computer science , psychoanalysis , biology
This study examines the effects of actor and partner attachment security on cortisol responses to discussions of personal and relationship concerns with a romantic partner. Dating couples ( N = 30) completed two 20‐min discussions and provided saliva samples at 4 time points before and after. Hierarchical linear modeling revealed that among women, higher levels of partner avoidance predicted greater cortisol reactivity to both discussions and among men, higher levels of actor anxiety predicted greater reactivity to the relationship concern discussion. These findings extend previous work by demonstrating that the effects of attachment on physiology vary by gender and by discussion context, which informs our understanding of how individual differences in attachment moderate the effects of romantic relationships on health.