Support or stress? How attachment and relationship dynamics associate with acute psychosocial stress in the presence of the romantic partner

Abstract

Stress is a wide-spread phenomenon and associated with various detrimental health effects. A significant resource for stress buffering is social support. How social support is perceived, however, depends on a multitude of individual and interindividual factors. This study aimed to explore the stress-reducing properties of relationship-inherent variables. We investigated the association of attachment style, relationship quality and dyadic coping, with subjective and physiological stress responses to a psychosocial laboratory stressor in romantic partners. Seventy-nine couples participated (85 recruited, six dropouts), with one partner ("target") undergoing the Trier Social Stress Test and the other ("observer") observing the situation. Besides examining the role of targets' relationship variables, we also assessed the link between observers' relationship variables and targets' stress reactivity. We found that both targets' and observers' insecure-avoidant attachment scores were associated with targets' stress reactivity. In detail, while targets' insecure-avoidant attachment scores were negatively associated with targets' subjective stress experience, observers' insecure-avoidant attachment scores were positively associated with targets' heart rate reactivity. Further, higher insecure-avoidant attachment scores were linked to lower psychoendocrine covariance, i.e., a lower accordance between self-reported and cortisol stress responding. On the one hand, these data may suggest that under stress, insecure-avoidantly attached individuals suppress their experience of stress to preserve a sense of independence as part of their deactivating attachment strategy. The presence of an insecure-avoidantly attached partner during a stressful experience, on the other hand, seems to be a stressor rather than a source of support. Long-term, an insecure-avoidantly attached partner may negatively impact an individual's stress-related health and wellbeing.