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Perceived social support moderates the link between attachment anxiety and health outcomes.

ABSTRACT: Two literatures have explored some of the effects intimate relationships can have on physical and mental health outcomes. Research investigating health through the lens of attachment theory has demonstrated that more anxiously attached individuals in particular consistently report poorer health. Separate research on perceived social support (e.g., partner or spousal support) suggests that higher support has salutary influences on various health outcomes. Little to no research, however, has explored the interaction of attachment anxiety and perceived social support on health outcomes. The present study examined the attachment-health link and the moderating role of perceived social support in a community sample of married couples. Results revealed that more anxious persons reported poorer overall physical and mental health, more bodily pain, more medical symptoms, and impaired daily functioning, even after controlling for age, relationship length, neuroticism, and marital quality. Additionally, perceived social support interacted with attachment anxiety to influence health; more anxious individuals' health was poorer even when perceived social support was high, whereas less anxious individuals' health benefited from high support. Possible mechanisms underlying these findings and the importance of considering attachment anxiety in future studies of poor health in adulthood are discussed.

SUBMITTER: Stanton SC

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3988242 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Perceived social support moderates the link between attachment anxiety and health outcomes.

Stanton Sarah C E SC Campbell Lorne L

PloS one 20140415 4

Two literatures have explored some of the effects intimate relationships can have on physical and mental health outcomes. Research investigating health through the lens of attachment theory has demonstrated that more anxiously attached individuals in particular consistently report poorer health. Separate research on perceived social support (e.g., partner or spousal support) suggests that higher support has salutary influences on various health outcomes. Little to no research, however, has explo ...[more]

PMID: 24736729

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Project description:RATIONALE:Although perceived obligations to meet the expectations of family, friends, and society can be detrimental to physical health, much research in this area has thus far been conducted exclusively on Western samples. Cross-cultural research importantly suggests that positive health can be dependent on whether one engages in modes of being that are sanctioned by one's culture. Specifically, studies show that better health is predicted when people from cultures that value independence are able to exercise their personal autonomy and when people from cultures that value interdependence are able to maintain relational harmony (Kitayama et al., 2010). OBJECTIVE:Based on these lines of research, as the fulfillment of perceived obligations can facilitate relational harmony but infringe on personal autonomy, we posit that culture will moderate the impact of perceived obligations on health outcomes. To gain further insight, we additionally examined people's goal disengagement tendency as an individual difference that may influence their likelihood of shunning perceived obligations in order to avoid associated stressors. METHOD:Drawing from the parallel biomarker projects of Midlife in the United States and Midlife in Japan, we examined the interaction between perceived obligations and goal disengagement tendency on health among American and Japanese middle-aged adults. Health outcomes were indexed by biomarkers of inflammation (interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein levels) and cardiovascular risk (systolic blood pressure and total/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol). RESULTS:We found that a higher tendency to disengage from stressful social obligations is associated with better health for Americans. In contrast, we found poorer health outcomes amongst Japanese participants who tend to disengage from their perceived obligations. CONCLUSIONS:Our results highlight the importance of examining how perceived obligations influence physical health from a cultural perspective. The current study supports the hypothesis that culturally distinct pathways underlie health outcomes.

Project description:BACKGROUND:Obesity is a well-known risk factor for elevated inflammation and insulin resistance. Social anxiety may moderate this relationship, such that individuals who areboth obese and socially anxious may have an even greater risk for elevated inflammation and insulin resistance than those who are obese but not socially anxious; the combination of obesity and social anxiety is markedly stressful. METHODS:The current paper reports secondary analyses from the Biomarker wave of the Mid-Life in the United States (MIDUS) study (N?=?1255), a publicly available dataset of American adults. Participants completed a standard scale measuring social anxiety symptoms and had their waist circumference, height, and weight measured by a staff member. They also provided a fasting blood sample that was assayed for CRP, IL-6, HOMA-IR, glucose, and insulin. RESULTS:The interaction between obesity and social anxiety symptoms was significant. People with a larger waist circumference and more social anxiety symptoms had greater inflammation and insulin resistance relative to those with a larger waist circumference but less social anxiety symptoms. These results were similar for both measures of inflammation and were robust across both the unadjusted and adjusted models. The results were also largely replicated in models using body mass index (BMI) rather than waist circumference as the measure of obesity. CONCLUSIONS:The current findings build on existing work about the health risks of obesity, extending it in an important new direction by demonstrating that these health risks are stronger among those who are also socially anxious. In fact, the magnitude of the relationship between obesity and metabolic function is 1.5 times stronger among those with more social anxiety symptoms. Thus, knowing whether a person is obese only provides one piece of the puzzle; knowing information about both obesity and social anxiety symptoms is critical for understanding who is most at risk for obesity-related health problems. Thus, a critical next step is for intervention scientists to examine health programs tailored to people who are both obese and socially anxious.

Dataset Information

Perceived social support moderates the link between attachment anxiety and health outcomes.

Publications

Perceived social support moderates the link between attachment anxiety and health outcomes.

Similar Datasets

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